


(marching) band of brothers

by hepsybeth



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Marching Band, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Crushes, F/F, F/M, Georgia, M/M, Pranks and Practical Jokes, Sobel is Still an Ass (but what else is new), Summer, basically...everyone is in this, just guys being dudes, so i'll simply.uh. add them as they show up lol, this is very self-indulgent
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2020-06-27 05:33:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 23
Words: 29,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19784281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hepsybeth/pseuds/hepsybeth
Summary: (90% of the reason i decided to write this was because of the pun potential)band of brothers ft. band camp. war may be hell, but there's nothing like powering through 100 degree weather in the middle of july while playing the sousa





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> ok, so i know i have 2 unfinished things but. in my defense. i wrote over 30k of this in google docs. also, while this doesn't necessarily have a plot per se, it'll pretty much follow the typical marching band season. i've finished the camp section (i'll tidy it up as i post) and then, there's the whole football season. 
> 
> i also have the advantage of living in georgia, so setting it in toccoa wasn't too difficult. georgia summers are pretty unbearable at times lol.

The air-conditioner was broken.

A month ago, Lewis Nixon’s mom had explained that it had something to do with squirrels that got into the ceiling from the trees in the backyard. This shit always happened. Nix’s dad once suggested to the neighborhood board that they cut the tree down. The neighborhood HOA said something about how the trees “bolstered the scenic value” which was just a fancy way of saying “sucks to be you”. The broken air-conditioner was bearable during May but as the temperature rose from a pleasant 70 degrees to an only barely tolerable 90 as June rolled into July, the Nixons were fairly certain that they didn’t need to commit a grave sin to understand what hell felt like.

Nix lay on his mattress, completely bare, save the lightest blanket he could find. The black-haired boy watched the fan lazily turn around and around above him, the dangling light switches making a clanging noise as they hit the blades. It wasn’t like the fan was doing much more than rotating the already hot air in Nix’s bedroom, but there wasn’t much he could do about that anyway. He considered opening his bedroom window again, but the odds were that there wasn’t going to be any breeze coming his way. Earlier, for all his efforts of opening the window, all he got were a couple of flies buzzing around his face. Nix could handle there being no respite from the heat, but he couldn’t stand bugs.

He’d even tried the whole “spray yourself with a water bottle” method, but it didn’t take long for the water droplets on his face to become indistinguishable from the sweat that covered every inch of his pale body. The heat of the Georgia summer was hot and sticky and heavy and thick and _hot._

For a brief moment, he recalled the opening pages to _Frankenstein_ , the last book he was required to read for the summer before AP Lit began in the fall. The story began with a Captain Robert Walton writing to his sister about how he's powering through the biting chill of the North Pole in search of fame and fortune. Eventually, he meets Victor Frankenstein, but that wasn't the point Nix was getting at. Anything, the damn North Pole even, would be better that this stupid weather.

A quick glance to the blinking digital clock above his dresser informed him that he had only an hour before he needed to be ready, prepped, and in order on the blacktop outside of Toccoa High School. He had two hours before he had to lead a number of marchers, faces both new and familiar. He had _eleven hours_ before practice would be over and he would return home, arms sore from directing the band, and fall face-first onto his bed before the same thing happened the next day.

The only thing he got out of this was having the authority of being a drum major. That was pretty bitchin’.

Nix felt around for his phone and loudly groaned when he discovered that it wasn’t on the bed next to him anymore. He rolled over to his left, his mattress squeaking as he did, and looked down on his stain-covered carpeted floor where he found his phone face-down.

Picking it up, he rolled until he was on his back again and swiped to unlock it, still unwilling to add a passcode because who had the time? It’d bite him in the ass one day, but that day was yet to come.

He opened his contacts app and scrolled until he found the name “Dick”.

_**Me:** I’m rethinking my life _

_**Me:** Is it too late to turn back now? _

_**Dick:** Yes. _

_**Me:** when i told you i wanted to be a drum major, you should’ve kicked my dream in the dick, dick _

_**Dick:** :) I’ll see you there! _

“Damn it, Dick,” Nix grumbled. He used his elbows to prop himself up using his elbows and sighed. Although Dick didn’t say it in so many words, that smiley-face meant a whole bunch of things. Namely the fact that Lewis Nixon and Dick Winters had dreamed of being drum majors since they were freshmen. He remembered the first day of band camp the summer before freshman year, wearing his new sneakers and “cool” sunglasses that would eventually give his face tan lines. He remembered the command the drum majors had over what was otherwise a chaotic group of high-schoolers. He remembered thinking that directing the band and doing those salutes were so much cooler than playing the clarinet on the field. 

Fourteen-year-old Nix informed his best friend of his plans and they were both determined to see their dreams come to fruition. 

_Fourteen-year-old me was an idiot,_ Nix thought as he stood from his bed and put a shirt on. He looked at his clock again. Fifty-four minutes.

“Here goes nothing, I guess,” Nix muttered. He grabbed his empty water bottle and headed to the kitchen to refill it. This schedule of 10 in the morning to 8 at night was gonna be a long one.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> side note, for the other characters you'll quickly see which instruments i assigned them. but, for the drum majors (who aren't playing instruments), the instruments they play in concert band are as follows: dick- flute, nixon- (also) flute, welsh- french horn, speirs- tuba
> 
> additional side note, it came to my attention (Really Late) that a lot of band camps are actual summer camps, like overnight stuff. i didn't do that here, since i'm basing it on my experiences, which was practicing at the school and going back home when we were done for the day

“Water bottles?” Donald Malarkey looked down at his written checklist. He and his friend Skip Muck were standing around inside Muck’s bedroom while going through everything they would need for their first day of band camp. The AC was on full-blast and the boys, wearing shorts and short-sleeves, kept themselves from shivering through sheer force of will. They had less than thirty minutes left of cool air before the hours in ninety-degree heat and, damn it, they were going to enjoy it.

“Yeah. Wrote names on all three of ‘em!” Skip said. He was digging through his drawer looking for who knew what. “I can’t believe we never thought about water bottles before. That’s a smart investment.”

“I bet the band moms will be stoked,” Malarkey commented. “And the Pit.”

“Uh, _yeah._ Leaving empty paper cups everywhere is rude as hell. Can’t believe we used to do that.”

“Sheet music?”

“It’s right there on the bed,” Skip momentarily stopped his search to point at the folder on his bed. “There’s only one folder. Y’all have to find your own. I only have so many supplies.”

“Three copies?”

“ _Six_ copies,” Skip corrected, a smile on his face. “Six wonderful _beautiful_ copies. Because someone’s gonna lose their music and I’m not paying Sobel for a backup.”

“We’re not gonna lose our music,” Malarkey argued.

Skip snorted. “Penkala fucking will.”

The bold statement wasn’t without good reason. In the past years as a member of the marching band, Alex Penkala had lost his sheet music a grand total of 37 times. Misplacing the music wouldn’t be a problem if he’d already had it memorized, but the instances of losing the music always happened during the first two weeks of camp without fail. Before this year’s camp, Skip and Malarkey practically put Penkala under house arrest to force him to memorize the music because they were _seniors now_ and it was _fucking embarrassing._

“Sunscreen?”

“I got like a lotion thing that’s SPF 50 and there’s this spray that’s SPF 80, so I figure we can lotion up and then spray ourselves and make it an even 130.”

Malarkey laughed. “I don’t think that’s how that work, dude.”

“Who’s the brains of this operation? It could work. You laugh now but who’s gonna be laughing when you get sent to the ER because of skin cancer?”

“Lunch?”

“No. Not lunch. Me. I’ll be laughing.”

“I meant the food for tonight, idiot.”

“Ain’t that just dinner?”

“Same difference.”

“Peanut butter and bacon for _moi_ , peanut butter and banana for Penkala. And just a plain peanut butter sandwich for you, you sad boring man.”

“I appreciate it.”

“Where’s Penkala anyway? He should be here by now.”

“He’s finishing up our written proposal,” Malarkey said. He placed down the list and knelt down to tie his shoes because they looked a little loose. He was a senior and the last thing he was gonna do was trip over his own feet and break his nose while doing pivots.

“The Careless Whisper proposal?”

“The very same.” Malarkey stood back up.

“You think Sobel will go for it?”

“He better. It’s our senior year. He can allow us this one thing.”

“He’ll probably appreciate it being officially printed, y’know, before laughing in our faces.”

“I don’t need your negative energy, man.”

Malarkey shrugged. “Just saying.”

“Ah, found it!” Skip pulled out a tie-dye shirt. It had the school colors, red and green. By pure coincidence, Skip had worn that shirt the first day of band camp freshman and sophomore year and he hadn’t realized it until Penkala pointed it out. He intentionally wore it junior year and he wasn’t ending his streak today. “Lucky shirt.”

“Why’s it lucky?”

“I’m gonna need all the luck I can get in order to put up with Sobel’s bullshit and you know it. Speaking of Sobel and bullshit, can you believe our show?”

“We’ve known about it since May. Yes, I can believe it.”

“I can’t believe it. It’s a show about football.”

“Yeah.”

“ _Football_ , Malarkey.”

“Yeah.”

“Friday nights, the team’s gonna break for halftime after hours of football and then we lucky bastards are gonna do a show about football and then football is gonna start right back up again. It’s ridiculous. A football show?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s the dumbest thing I can think of. Even dumber than the disco show from freshman year. That was dumb, but this is just stupid. It’s insulting.”

“There’s the chance that changes can be made. Shows always go through changes.”

“Maybe.” Skip was now wearing his lucky shirt and took a deep breath. “I can’t believe this.”

“You still talking about the show?” Malarkey wondered.

“No, not the show. Us. We’re seniors. This is our last band camp.” Skip waved his hands around like words alone couldn’t describe this well enough. “This is it, man. _Forever.”_

“I don’t know,” Malarkey said. He began gathering all their supplies and dividing it into threes. He handed Skip a drawstring bag so he could put his stuff in there. “Don’t they have marching band in college?”

“Sure they do, but who has the time?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> is my adding the football show theme referencing a dumb marching band show i was in my junior year? maybe.


	3. Chapter 3

Webster was complaining in the backseat.

Joe Liebgott swore loudly and turned up the dial of the car radio, some top 40 station, one hand still tightly gripping the worn and tearing leather of the steering wheel. All the while, he was mentally kicking himself in the head because of course,  _ of course _ , he forgot today was the first day of band camp. He’d otherwise been having a good summer, great even. Somehow, he’d stupidly thought that he’d still have another week to hole up in his room before the long and free days of summer came to an end and the long and arduous days of summer that he’d sign up for began. Not that he was ever the best with scheduling, (countless missed homework could attest to that. Not that he was a bad student, but he wasn't the great with dates), but band camp was an annual occurrence. It wasn’t like he was trying to avoid it; he fucking enjoyed nature, bug bites be damned. But he wanted to savor every bit of his air-conditioned pre-band camp days.

A day that ended about an hour ago.

What was even playing on the radio?

_ Fuck _ , he didn’t even like this song.

He quickly changed it to a different station. An announcer began shouting about a car sale happening downtown.

“It’s so hot!” David loudly groaned from the backseat.

“Shut up, Webster!” Liebgott said. It was said in unison with John Martin who was sitting in the passenger seat beside him. He and Martin had been buddies since they’d been the last two men standing in the infamous dodgeball game of their sixth-grade field day. He was short and stocky where Liebgott was tall and gangly. He also had a hell of a glare. From the corner of his eye, Liebgott could tell that Johnny was directing his signature glare towards the guy in the back.

That was the other thing.

Liebgott couldn’t stand Webster.

Okay, that was a lie. Webster wasn’t the worst company, but he was stuck up.

Living in the same neighborhood and being the designated transit for the neighborhood teenagers, since he was the only kid his age in the neighborhood who had a car to call his own, had made the blue-eyed kid no stranger to Liebgott. They’d gone to the same elementary and middle school, but they’d never shared the same classes. Not even band, since Webster was the kind of guy who saw that as another thing to excel in where Liebgott would rather have a fun time. It wasn’t like Liebgott actively looked out for where Webster spent his free time, but it wasn’t any secret that he’d carved himself a nice home in the library. Which library? Any library. The nerd would walk down the hallways with a book in his face and would have the audacity to look offended when he bumped into someone, not the other way around.

According to Liebgott’s friends, the ones who shared classes with Webster, the guy had the ability to get away with everything. Not that he did anything outlandish, but he could do nothing but read something unrelated to the class subject at his desk while the teacher did their thing. Toye once suggested that it probably had something to do with him getting good grades, so he’d get a pass, that maybe teachers let you get away with things if you were book smart.

No disrespect to Toye, but that was bullshit, and Liebgott let him know, because Liebgott himself had gotten straight A’s since grades started to matter and he was always called out for every little thing in class.

Middle school ended with little fanfare and high school began soon after. And somehow, some way, Liebgott and Webster had managed to have every single class together. From freshman year to junior year. It didn’t matter if it was Home Ec, Current Events, AP European History, whatever. Senior year was just around the corner and Liebgott felt as though he should bet good money on the two of them sharing the same schedule. And as a result of all that, Webster had equated “close proximity” with “very good friends with Liebgott”. Liebgott tried to humor him, give him the benefit of the doubt. After all, Nix could be a major fucking nerd when he wanted to and he was pretty alright, even if they weren’t the closest of pals. But David Webster proved himself to be insufferable and exhausting and a know-it-all with a stick up his ass and the only reason he was in the backseat of Liebgott’s car and not walking the six miles to Toccoa High School was because his complaining would reach Mrs. Webster and Mrs. Webster attended a book club with Mrs. Liebgott and if Mrs. Liebgott heard about it, Liebgott would never hear the end of it. 

It was a lose-lose situation.

“Guys, just,” Webster said from the backseat. Was he panting? It sounded like he was panting. The hell was he doing that warranted panting? “Could you crank up the AC or something? I’m dyin’”

It's not that he wanted to dislike Webster. He was a nerd, but he could be funny sometimes. He had a cute laugh. His hair was stupidly perfect. But biting the bullet and becoming actual friends with the guy meant putting up with more of _this_ bullshit.

“Wanna pay for the gas money, Web?” Liebgott replied. The car ahead of him skidded in front of him just as the light went from yellow to red and Liebgott felt his knuckles tighten on the wheel. “Oh, come  _ on! You sonuvabitch” _

“We’re gonna be late,” Webster said.

“Yeah, no shit.” Martin was now leaning back on his seat, his red-colored band folder open in front of him. One hand flipped through the pages while the other hand made the motion of pressing down imaginary sousaphone valves.

“It’s the first day. We ain’t gonna miss anything important,” Liebgott muttered, mostly to himself.

“Yeah, maybe if we were late by fifteen minutes,” Webster pointed out. Sounds of him adjusting in the backseat came and from Liebgott could tell in his mirror, it looked like he was lying down now. “Announcements probably got read an  _ hour _ ago.”

“Web, I swear that if I wasn’t driving this car right now, I’d break your shins.”

“Yeesh. That’s a little harsh.”

“Your  _ fucking  _ shins!”

“But really, man. It’s really hot in here.”

“Shut the  _ fuck up! _ ” Liebgott all but shouted.

“Look,” Martin said. He turned in his seat so he was facing Webster in the back. “We’re seniors, right? We’ve got seniority rights and shit. They ain’t gonna worry about us. There’s all these new inexperienced freshmen. They’re gonna be so worried about them acting up, they won’t even notice if we’re an hour late.”

And he said it so calmly, so sure, that Liebgott almost believed him.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> btw, as i was writing all 30k (so far) of this, it became glaringly obvious how little women were in the show. marching band is never this boy-heavy. so, yeah. that's just kinda funny.
> 
> and. there are SO MANY CHARACTERS LOL. but, despite the large number of characters, it's nowhere near large enough to make up an entire marching band. there in lies imagination: i'll do my best, but imagine that there are more characters beyond the ones that are named lol
> 
> ok ok so basically camp starts here:

“You’re late, man!” Babe Heffron called towards the three red-faced teenagers walking on the blacktop towards where the rest of the band were seated. The redhead was sitting cross-legged next to the other members of the drumline, bouncing up and down as much as his seated body would allow, as if the blood in his body had been replaced by Coke (at least, according to Bill Guarnere). Whether it was the carbonated beverage or the white narcotic, Guarnere refused to say. 

“Shut the fuck up, Babe,” was all Liebgott said as he sat down among the low brass, wincing slightly his legs touched the burning hot ground. It was obvious that the senior didn’t care in the slightest for the band’s somewhat-enforced “No Swearing” policy. If anything, it was more of a “No Swearing around Sobel and Dike” policy since they were the only people who ever seemed to become incredibly disturbed if tasteless four-letter-words left the mouths of their band.

“Alright, okay, cool,” Babe said, nodding to himself as he wrapped his arms around his knees. “What’s up with him?” he asked Guarnere.

Guarnere, Toye, Babe, and the Freshman sat in their own little pod (although Babe had no idea who invited the Freshman) near a few other members of the drumline who kept to themselves. They weren’t the largest drumline in the state, but they were a powerhouse in Babe’s humble opinion).

Guarnere was tapping a rhythm on the blacktop below him and Babe didn’t know how he could stand it, hot as it was. The dark-haired boy shrugged. “The fuck knows?” And it was a fair answer. This was Liebgott they were talking about after all. He’d blame an innocent table for stubbing his toe. He’d blame the pouring rain for making him wet, even if someone told him to bring an umbrella. The dude found fault in everything and a single incident could sour his mood for the rest of the day.

“Ten bucks says it’s Webster,” Another voice answered to the right of Babe. Shifty Powers. Given that Shifty pointed it out, it was probably right. He was better at placing bets than even Compton. Somehow, he’d inched his way away from his fellow trumpets and found himself sitting with them. Joe Toye sat next to him and he rolled his dark eyes, but didn’t necessarily disagree.

“Ah, yeah. That makes sense,” Bill said instead of elaborating on why, in fact, it made sense.

“Who’s Webster. And what’s wrong with him?” a freshman asked. Babe thought his name was Julian. Or maybe that was his last name. It didn’t matter since Babe had started referring to him as “The Freshman” in his head. He hadn’t thought much of him at first despite them being in the same section. He supposed he recognized him from the previous year’s Eighth Grade Night, when the local middle schoolers would come and be a part of the band for the night. The kid was, like, 70% leg and had more pimples than skin and, even though it fell on Babe to show him the ropes (especially since he was good enough at the drums that Sobel allowed him to join the drumline, specifically as the snare drum player next to Babe’s tenor drums), he’d decided to spend whatever short amount of time he could with the friends he hadn’t seen for a few months. He’d have the rest of the year to deal with The Freshman.

“You wouldn’t understand,” Guarnere said as Toye grumbled, “Mind your damn business, Freshman.”

And that sucked because Babe wasn’t a freshman and he wanted to know what was going on too, but now he couldn’t find out.

Babe could see The Freshman pouting and it was  _ embarrassing.  _ “Don’t take it personal, ‘k?” The freshman looked at him and huffed out a sigh instead of answering. To no one in particular, he let out a whiney, “It’s so  _ hot _ out here,” before collapsing down onto his back, burning hot ground be damned. 

The Freshman might’ve been the only fourteen-year-old in the drumline, but there were plenty of new faces to go around in the Toccoa Marching Eagles Band. Plenty of them seemed to be buzzing with excitement, not unlike Babe himself. However, unlike Babe who understood what band camp entailed, and the future sensation of soreness where he had never felt sore before, these guys had no idea what they were getting into. The poor fucks.

All the teenagers were divided into circles based on their respective instruments. Babe sat among those in the drumline. To the right of them were the trumpet section, as loud and as obnoxious as their instruments were. Further away to the left was the low brass section, consisting of trombones and tubas who were tasked with supporting the show. There was the saxophone section loudly talking amongst themselves and the clarinet section sitting in rapt attention, impressing absolutely no one. The flute section was sitting with the mellophones because that’s just what they did. The “field” (which was what the parking lot was called, with its chalky yard lines drawn onto the face of the blacktop) sat on a hill and the color guard girls were practicing with their rifles below it. The members of the Pit simply stood next to their marimbas and timpanis and xylophones under the massive shadow of the viewing tower, chatting without a care in the world (which was fair enough since they didn’t march anyway). 

Babe waved to Gene Roe, the resident marimba player in the band.

Gene didn’t seem to notice, so Babe lowered his hand, telling himself that the rising heat in his ears was from the sun and  _ only  _ the sun. 

The band was quiet, or as quiet as a group of teenagers ever was, as the newest drum majors finished addressing them. Whispered gossip and animated chatter had gone back and forth among the band for the past thirty minutes (the first thirty minutes were more for “meet and greets” and getting a feel for the band room, along with distributing the extra sheet music with full knowledge that at least half would go missing before the week was through). Most of the band had tried to pay attention to what was being said, especially the seniors. Seniors tried to control their section, but it was never at a 100% success rate. 

There were four drum majors for this band season, fitting given the size of the band. One was Richard Winters, who went by “Dick”. Babe didn’t know the guy too well (the taller ginger played the flute last year and had hung out with the woodwinds), and he seemed pretty alright, but he didn’t know if the guy was totally oblivious to the absurdity of his nickname or if he  _ did  _ know and that it was just a massive power move on his part. Besides that, he seemed totally at ease at his new position of leading the band. His confidence was palpable, and his steady voice hardly needed a megaphone to command the attention of the band. As proof of his popularity, the beginning of his welcoming speech was drowned out by the cheers of the crowd seated before him.

The second drum major, Lewis Nixon (everyone called him “Nixon” or “Nix” unless you were Dick, in which case you could sometimes call him “Lew”), had black hair and pale skin, with eyes that sat above pronounced dark circles. However, he didn’t act as tired as he looked (and he looked dead on his feet, in Babe’s opinion). He wore a lazy smile while he gave his introduction speech, which was peppered with jokes Some of the jokes had the entire band roaring while some went under the band instructors’ noses. Some jokes seemed solely directed towards Dick, who would loudly snort when, for example, the black-haired boy said something about “those damn peaches”.

Harry Welsh was the third drum major and Babe instantly liked him. He didn’t have the impressive sort of command that Dick had, and he wasn’t a comic like Nixon, but he seemed the most approachable. His curly golden hair caught the light of the sun and his freckled face seemed to light up from inside when he told the band how much he looked forward to welcoming the freshmen into their family. When he was finished, the loudest cheer came from a girl named Kitty from the low brass section.

The last guy up caused a hush to come across the band, a stillness that not even Dick had been able to produce. Babe was positive that The Freshman was confused, as were the other freshmen, but Babe knew he’d figure it out soon enough. The fourth drum major was serious and focused. Not that the other drum majors weren’t serious and focused but this guy, Ronald Speirs, was totally  _ Spartan _ . At least, that was the vibe Babe got when he was talking. It probably was to be expected, given that he had come from their rival school, Oconee High, but Sobel still allowed him to be a drum major for this year after he had moved to their district late last year and had, reportedly, been really impressed by his drum major audition. Something about his skill. Skill or no skill, it was still plenty weird. The awkwardness and tension that followed Speirs’s short, and to the point, speech hung in the air like another layer of humidity.

Liebgott, Martin and Webster had arrived during the tail end of Mr. Dike’s speech, their assistant band instructor. He was a fairly short man with neatly parted brown hair and iron-creased pants. Despite his well-put-together appearance, he always seemed to be under the weather. It took him three tries to get his name out between his sneezing and coughing. As per usual, his speech was filled to the brim with dated hip-with-the-kids jokes and unfinished sentences since he tended to change his mind before he got to the eventual point. It was an almost useless stream of blah that would be quickly forgotten in the next hour, so Babe had no idea why he was even trying. All things considered, Babe figured that missing an hour of that was an hour well missed.

Before the last speech of the beginning of band camp, before the actual practice, Babe felt the sun leave for a moment. He and a few other teenagers looked up at the sky as a large cloud covered the sun and everyone but the freshmen embraced that moment for as long as they could since the sun would come back eventually.

“And there he is. The goddamn man himself,” Guarnere said beside Babe. A tall black-haired man with impossible posture made his way to the front of the band. He smiled with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. His cold, cold eyes. He’d previously been standing stoically at the edge of the sort-of-circle, not showing whether or not he disapproved of anything that had happened. Occasionally, his eyes zeroed onto a poor soul, leaving them shaking if they were a sophomore or a junior, or unaffected if they were a senior or a freshman, the latter because of ignorance and the former because of plain old indifference.

“Ten bucks he says the same speech.” Shifty mumbled around his water bottle, eventually frowning when some water spilled out from the corner of his mouth. He’d already gone through half of the bottle just in the minutes they’d been sitting down and that was bad news, since the eventual water break wouldn’t be for another few hours, probably.

“No one’s dumb enough to take you up on a stupid bet,” Guarnere replied. He punched The Freshman in the shoulder. “Right, Freshman?”

The Freshman’s eyes were wide, suddenly part of a conversation he had no idea was going on. He looked from his right to his left, mouth open all the while. “What?” he repeated.

“Rule one of band camp,” Guarnere started, pointing his finger at the open air beside him as if it were a piece of chalk a teacher might be holding. He tapped his finger against the imaginary chalkboard. “Always pay attention.”

The Freshman was still confused. “But I—”

“I’m the section leader. I know what I’m talking about.” And with that, Guarnere focused his attention back to the front just as Sobel was about to speak.

“What the—” The Freshman was still at a loss for words.

Babe turned his head to look at the kid’s red pimply face. Whispering he said, “Look, don’t worry about it. Guarno’s just being a hardass.”

“I heard that,” Guarnere shot back.

A chorus of Shhs went around the band as Guarnere was suddenly the loudest person talking. Everyone else had quieted down because no one wanted to be singled out by the notorious Herbert Sobel. Babe watched as Guarnere glared at everyone, knowing that he wanted to let out a string of curses but  _ couldn’t. _

Babe continued to whisper to The Freshman. “He just takes getting used to. Everything takes getting used to. Just don’t be annoying, don’t be an asshole, and don’t be an annoying asshole, and you’ll get around fine.”

The Freshman gave a skeptical look. “Don’t be an annoying asshole. Rule number two of band camp?”

“Sure,” Babe shrugged. “Rule number two of band camp.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> additional side note: there are no members of the easy company in the color guard, mostly bc i was already 20k in before i realized i forgot about the color guard (sorry if any color guard people are reading this). i'll still incorporate that section of the band, but probably in passing
> 
> review if you enjoyed reading so far!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> enter: even more boys (sousaphone edition)
> 
> also, i played around a bit with ages, but so did the miniseries, so it's gucci

“Is he blinking?” Albert Blithe asked. His large blue eyes were directed at the front field with a mix of awe and fear. “I don’t think he’s blinking.”

“He hasn’t fucking blinked  _ once _ ,” replied Donald Hoobler. The two sophomore sousaphone players were listening to Sobel’s speech. Sitting further back from the front, their talking wasn’t easily heard, despite the near silence of the rest of the band. The low brass section tended to sit together, and usually further away from the rest of the action. So, with their arms around their sousaphones and their back to the woods behind them, they were able to speak freely, more or less. Especially when it came to the actions of a certain band instructor.

Plus, it was hotter than an oven outside and a distraction like talking, albeit discreetly, was better than no distraction at all. 

“Who’s not blinking?” The voice came from a freshman. His name was Tony Garcia. He seemed nice in Blithe’s opinion. He appeared to be very easy going and extremely well prepared. Blithe could barely see Garcia’s tan skin underneath his thick layer of sunscreen. He also had his water bottle filled half with water and half with ice. It was genius.

Hoobler was the first to answer, leaning towards Garcia who was seated in front of him. It was only the first day, but there seemed to be enough evidence that Hoobler was a fan of helping the freshmen along in any way he could. He directed them to the ever-elusive bathrooms, he sent emails early on instructing incoming freshmen to bring bug spray, he started the band’s group chat, he designed the t-shirts for everyone in his section (an action that the trumpet section deemed cool enough to replicate), and told them that, no, they weren’t allowed to climb the viewing tower (even though it was an open secret that he  _ really, really wanted _ to climb the viewing tower). Carwood Lipton, fondly known by the band as “Lipton Iced Tea”, or any variation of that, jokingly complained that Hoobler was taking away his job.

“It’s Sobel,” Hoobler explained, shaking his head in mild disbelief. “I’ve been watching this dude talk and he doesn’t blink.”

“It doesn’t even look like he’s sweating or nothing,” added another freshman. It was the boy sitting next to Tony, named Lester Hashey. During the time the band had been sitting on the blacktop, he’d almost unconsciously start rubbing his sousaphone. It was an old instrument, almost a mustard-gold in color with a multitude of scratches and tiny scattered dents. Even the valves were worn away in parts, the original smooth texture now covered in bumps and furrows after years of kids handling it. It still shone in the sunlight, but only barely. Hashey learned only to complain once after getting a stern talking-to by Hoobler, which could be summed up as “it still sounds great” and “freshmen can’t be choosers”.

Albert Blithe was only starting the marching band thing this year. The fact that he wasn’t a freshman seemed to allow him some sort of privileges when it came to receiving his sousaphone (the only reason he hadn't joined the band his first year of high school was because he didn't think he was up to it. But attending the Friday night football games during last Fall had cemented his determination to be part of something like that). So, when he opened up his assigned case inside of the small Tuba Room (a room within the band room specifically for tuba players with the ever-present smell of Cool Ranch Doritos and valve oil and ancient tubas hanging on the walls) and saw that his sousaphone was in a better condition than the freshmen, he simply kept his mouth shut.

“Sobel?” Blithe asked, confused. He stopped playing with his sousaphone valves and looked at Hoobler. “What do you mean? I was talking about the new drum major guy. Speirs.”

“Who’s talking about Speirs?” Hoobler asked. He looked from Blithe to the front again where Sobel was still speaking. Something about the band fees. “I’m talking about Sobel.”

“Naw, it’s both of them,” Garcia said, incredulously. “I don’t think they’re blinking.”

“That ain’t natural,” Hashey added.

Despite the unnaturalness of it all, it looked for all the world, or at least this band, that neither Herbert Sobel or Ronald Speirs were blinking. For Blithe, “odd” wasn’t a good enough word to describe it. Possibly, “disconcerting”. But he had heard plenty about how awful of a man Sobel was. Perhaps his non-blinking thing was just a way to make the band feel uncomfortable. As far as he was concerned, it was working.

The thing he couldn’t understand was Ronald Speirs. It was the senior’s first year at Toccoa High and had somehow managed to become their fourth drum major. Supposedly, he was a master of his craft.

The chatter of the four boys seemed to increase in volume, not that any of them noticed. It took their section leader, Bull Randleman, to turn around and kindly tell them to “hush” for them to finally stop talking for all of ten seconds.

“I heard he killed a freshman at his old school,” Hashey said, breaking their short silence.

Hoobler scoffed. “Shut up.”

“It’s true,” Hashey insisted, leaning forward. “Or, at least sent him to the hospital. I heard it was because he never got to his dot on time.”

“Sure he did.”

“I also heard he can smell fear,” Hashey continued solemnly, like this was a campfire tale.

“Yeah, I heard that too,” Garcia agreed.

“Like a dog,” Hashey said.

Hoobler laughed at this. “Oh yeah, like the Oconee High Dogs! Good one!”

“Where’d you hear that?” Blithe asked the freshmen. Not that he really believed rumors like that. Could anything truly smell fear? But whether that was true or not, he still felt something was strange about the fourth drum major. 

“In the band room,” Hashey answered. “I was filling up my water bottle. I think, uh, I don’t know his name. He’s, like, tall and I think he was singing? Through his mouthpiece?”

“Skinny,” Hoobler said, interrupting him. “I saw him doing that. Go on.”

“I don’t think he was that skinny. He was, like, average, I think.”

“No, that’s his name.”

“His parents named him “Skinny”?”

“Nickname, freshman,” Hoobler rolled his eyes, but there was no malice behind it.

“Cool. So, yeah, Skinny told me.”

“Hey!” This time, it was Johnny Martin who turned around. The brunette’s glare was terrifying and he made a fast zipping motion with his hand over his mouth and his order was less kind than that of his taller companion. “ _ Zip it! _ ”

The four boys sheepishly turned back to their original positions, no longer facing each other in a circle of their own. They were quiet for about twenty seconds this time while Sobel began to talk about the rules.

“I’ll say again,” Sobel was saying, again, his voice slow and deliberate, “Missing a day of band practice is not only detrimental to  _ you _ , but to the  _ band  _ as a whole. I’m looking forward to a fulfilling season and any amount of  _ slacking off _ on your part takes a toll. I’m looking at the seniors and juniors to remember and follow my expectations. Freshmen, this is only the first day. Have fun. But catch up.  _ Swiftly. _ ”

“I don’t know,” Hoobler began, taking Sobel’s speech into consideration. “He seems nicer.”

“Who, Speirs?” Blithe asked, because the clarification was needed. He didn’t want to find out they were talking about different people again.

“No, not Speirs. Sobel.” Hoobler wiped away some sweat that had begun to bead on his forehead. “Well, maybe “nice” isn’t the right word. He seems sorta, uh, less snappish.” He smirked at Blithe. “But watch out for him during competition season.”

“What happens during competition season?”

“He becomes your greatest fear, man,” Hoobler said, seriously. “Whatever you’re scared of now is  _ nothing _ compared to what he’s like then. You’re gonna have nightmares about him. It’s the  _ worst.” _

“Huh,” Blithe mused, pale hand gripping the valves of his instrument. He idly went through the fingering positions of some scales and tried to put Hoobler’s warnings to rest in his mind. If everyone feared Sobel, and Speirs smelled fear, Speirs must have a hell of a headache by now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> any band geeks in the house, make some Noise (or drop a comment)!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> introducing: even more characters
> 
> also, if it seems i'm brass biased, it's bc i played in the low brass. if any woodwinds take offence to anything i might say, i'm sorry!

“Reach down and touch your toes!” Compton heard Liebgott say. Compton watched as the nearby members of the low brass set their instruments aside on the blacktop. He flinched as he heard a rough sound drag across the ground. Liebgott was equally disturbed and added, “And, for the love of God,  _ don’t _ scrape the instruments.”

“What if you can’t touch your toes?” a freshman asked, because they always asked. The freshman, if Compton recalled correctly, was named Will Dukeman and his face was white under probably an inch of sunscreen. His instrument was carefully placed on the ground beside him and he waited for an answer from Liebgott, the current section leader through something of an “Order of Succession”. Technically, James Miller (a trombone player whose family moved somewhere in the north (someplace in Indiana, Compton thought) just the other week, was supposed to be the section leader instead. It was quite a blow to the structure previously decided upon back in May. Of course, Liebgott stepped up to the plate, but he hadn’t ever planned on being section leader, not really.

Compton, a bari sax player, was only doing his stretches with the trombones because three sax players (namely Malarkey, Skip, and Penkala) appeared to be scheming about something. Any other time, he’d be interested, but not now. It was the afternoon, but it was too early for whatever they were planning on doing. He needed time to re-calibrate to the band camp schedule.

Plus, bari saxes played notes low enough to consider him an honorary member of the low brass and he had no problem with that (even if he considered slightly insulting since woodwinds could outplay the brass any day of the week).

“If you can’t touch your toes, then reach down as far as you can,” Liebgott said as he bent down to demonstrate this. “And hold it for a while.” This importance of this stretch, and the many other stretches they would do after this, was so they wouldn’t pull anything while marching. Marching band, while not categorized as a sport (and bringing that up was just asking for an argument) was subject to the same rituals of a sport, one of which was stretching before practice and cooling down afterwards.

So, they stretched. They stretched their arms across their chest, they stretched their hamstrings, they grabbed a foot and stretched it while standing up (and trying to keep their balance). It wasn’t anything terribly strenuous, but a couple of freshmen, one a girl and one a boy, already looked worn out by the end of it. Compton sympathized. Marching band was an exciting experience, but everyone had to jump over the initial hurdle of the hell that was the first few days of band camp.

Compton was a humble guy in his own personal opinion. His freshman year of band camp, he had cried a few manly tears of frustration. There was no shame in that.

An instruction to start standing on the yard lines came from Welsh. The yard lines, drawn in chalk, had spaced-out blue dots running up and down the line. Compton and some low brass kids were near the 65 yard line (which wasn’t really designated with a line; it was the space in between the 60 and 70 since that’s how it would be on an actual football field). He and Liebgott, as well as he could at least, told the freshmen and sophomores and juniors in their section to get on their dots and they heard similar instructions shouted across the blacktop at the other marchers.

“Ok, get on your dots!” came the voice of Harry Welsh, along with a loud clanging sound. Compton squinted his eyes and frowned at the cowbell Welsh was holding. Why the hell did he have a cowbell? Further up with the trumpets, Luz caught his eye and, when Compton mouthed “cowbell”, Luz mouthed his answer of _“I have no idea”_.

Chatter spread across the blacktop as people hurried to their dots. Compton hoped they would quiet down. Not for his sake, though. He could care less. But, Sobel—

“I want there to be  _ complete silence _ on my field!” Sobel barked from the near the band tower. There wasn’t immediate quiet, of course. There never was. The freshmen were certainly left shaken, but anyone older started to giggle.

“Remember to keep your feet at a 45-degree angle!” This order came from Dick. There was a loud sound of shuffling while people got into position. Once everyone seemed still again, Dick continued. “Now I want you to raise your instruments and keep them in position. You’ll stay like that for four counts and then take one step.”

Practice continued in this way. Instruments would be held at attention and all the groans would come from the freshman and some sophomores and juniors. Despite the burning sensation in Compton’s arms and the sweat that began to darken his shirt, he and all the seniors had all agreed on a silent pact that even though they felt like they were suffering (and they were _suffering_ ), they were  _ seniors _ and they needed to set an example and look badass while doing it.

The initial practice was pretty basic as far as practices go. Soon, it’d get more elaborate and such. But, for now it was rookie stuff like snapping your instrument from parade rest to attention, listening to the clarinets complain for no goddamn reason, taking a few steps (first one step with their left foot pointed to the sky, then slowly evolving to taking two steps, then four steps, then all the steps needed to walk to the next yard line.) It was a monotonous process, but every penny adds up, as they say.

“You instrument is  _ not that heavy! _ ” Compton heard Sobel shout from the viewing tower. Like this was day five or something, not day one. He blinked away the sweat falling into his eyes and glared at the tall man shouting into his megaphone. “Keep them raised up!”

“I’m gonna die,” Compton heard a freshman complain beside him. She was short and red in the face. Her instrument wobbled as she tried to keep it up.

Compton opened his mouth and tried to say something, but all that left his mouth was empty air. Unfortunately, he’d fallen victim to an especially aggressive cold a few days prior (in the middle of  _ fucking summer)  _ and all the coughing had practically robbed him of his voice for the time being. On the other side of him, he got the eye of Kitty and gestured to the freshman.

Kitty nodded in understanding and, as the band paused during the break in the metronome rhythm before marching to the right instead of the left this time, she and Compton stealthily switched places, getting to the other’s dot in no time at all. Kitty began encouraging the freshman on, explaining that it was only the first day and she was gonna be “so freaking buff” by the end of camp.

“Please!” Smokey scoffed. Smokey Gordon, for whatever reason, was missing from the rest of the clarinet section. Compton remembered seeing him scrambling around for a dot when basics began. The tall and lanky sophomore wore a baseball cap backwards and held his clarinet at attention. “I went through all this shit last year and I didn’t get buff.”

“That’s because you’re holding a stick, Smokey,” Liebgott said loudly from behind Compton. “You only get buff when you’re holding something baller like this.”

“Fuck you Liebgott. Woodwinds are shredded!” Compton heard Penkala call from pretty much the other side of the basics block. Compton mouth dropped open as he looked from Penkala to Sobel and back to Penkala. 

_ Shut up! _ , he wished he could say.  _ Don’t push it, idiot. _

“Not shredded enough to be in DCI!” Skinny Sisk yelled from the trumpet section, with the carelessness of one who made a pastime of adding fuel to the fire.

“You take that back!” Skip Muck shouted. And now, like clockwork, and all out verbal brawl played out on the blacktop, with woodwinds vs brass insults flying across the air like grenades. A quick glance to both the smug drumline and amused color guard proved that they were perfectly happy to watch the fallout.

Compton blinked up at Sobel at the viewing tower, his face contorted into his familiar scowl. There was chaos below him and Compton knew the consequence even before it was practically screamed into the megaphone.

_“At the end of the day, EVERYBODY IS RUNNING LAPS!"_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> leave a comment if you've enjoyed reading so far!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and now the Pit (disclaimer: i don't know much about the front ensemble as i didn't have any friends in that section of the band. at least in our band, they had their own practices separate from what the marchers would do (like they might practice while we're on break, or they're straight chillin' while we're repeating a movement for the 10th time in a row). so hopefully what i observed wasn't too far off the mark!)
> 
> another side note (damn, i'm chock full of them), i have to say that most band instructors aren't like how i'm portraying sobel. my band instructor taught at our high school for 20 yrs and he was amazing. then, he got replaced (after i left) by a pretty shit one. this band instructor (according to my sister) is sometimes under the impression that water breaks are optional, not a requirement. i figured sobel might act the same way

Eugene Roe didn’t regret being placed in the front ensemble after auditioning to be part of the drumline his freshman year (he rather enjoyed it, even deciding to forgo the drumline entirely for sophomore year), especially in times like these. From his cozy part in the shade, he watched the marchers face the bell of the horns (or the woodwind equivalent) towards the viewing tower. Every marcher had fatigue visible on their faces, sweat darkening their chests and the pits of their shirts, even if the seniors were less apt to display it (expect for Joe Toye who, for all the world, looked pretty much at ease).

Neither Eugene nor the rest of the front ensemble could see Sobel’s position at the top of the viewing tower, but he could easily imagine what it looked like as he heard the band instructor give a countdown before the marchers were expected to blow their first note together as a band.

Eugene winced, bracing himself for the harsh sound due to come any second now.

“Brace yourself, freshie!” Eugene heard Ralph Spina tell their newest recruit, a short Asian kid with a buzzcut, just as Sobel reached “3” in his countdown. The short kid had all of one second to cover his ears before the band let out such a dissonant sound that could only be demonic in nature.

“We’re going to try that again,” Sobel said from above the Pit, and Eugene could imagine the man’s face. If looks could kill, Sobel would have a mass slaughter on his hands. “This time, everyone plays after I say “3”. Not before, not on. Try again.”

And try again, the band did. If possible, the sound was even more discordant. 

“Again!” Sobel called out, and Eugene could hear his signature frustrated strain creeping into his voice.

More noise. Terrible, terrible noise.

“ _ NO!” _ Sobel shouted, followed by a sharp slamming sound that was probably the band director snapping his binder closed with more force than was necessary. “ _ After 3 _ _!_ Not  _ on _ 3! Not  _ before _ 3! _ On my count!” _

“There he is,” Renée Lemarie said next to Eugene. Renée’s shoulder length blonde hair was pulled back into a simple half ponytail since, after cutting it earlier this summer, there wasn’t much else she could do with it. About the decision, she explained to Eugene that she was donating her hair to kids with cancer, which Eugene admitted was a nice thing to do. Renée volunteered at the local hospital since her dream was to be a nurse once graduating college. Between all the volunteering she did at the hospital and dual enrollment at the nearby community college, Eugene wasn’t sure how she had any time to spare for band camp. Then again, she was also the most responsible teenager he knew. If anyone managed to make that schedule from hell work, it was her.

Spina snorted from the other side of Eugene. Spina, the self-proclaimed Timpani King (titled as such since he refused to allow anyone else to play the timpanis in the band for the past three years), was seated near his beloved timpanis. “He was trying way too hard to be nice this time around, he was bound to blow up eventually.” While Sobel continued to yell at the band from his tower (Eugene could imagine the spittle flying out of his mouth), Spina made his own announcement. “We’re taking a break. This is gonna take a while.”

Eugene walked away from his marimba with his mallets in hand, tapping them against the underside of his forearms in a rhythm that resembled the tune he'd been practicing earlier. He joined the rest of the front ensemble where they gathered at the curb at the edge of the blacktop, facing the band. The other people seated at the curb included the band moms and a golden dog that belonged to Talbert. Maybe.

Separate from the rest of the band was the drumline. They gathered in a circle near the parking lot doing warm-ups with Dike. Supposedly, Dike was a percussionist in another life. And, perhaps there was truth to that statement, not that Eugene had ever seen the man pick up a single drumstick in the whole time he’d been part of the band. Eugene admitted it was an unkind thing to say, but the man was what his mother would call “as bright as midnight”. He never, ever, seemed to have a clue about anything. Not that appearances were ever a way to judge a man’s character, but the man always looked confused about one thing or another. 

Dike appeared to be instructing the drumline on their drills, giving a tip here and there when none was asked. The drumline was practically its own self-governing entity, voting on their own amendments and collecting their own taxes (used to buy printed hoodies and outings to the bowling alley). But, Dike was far less of an obstacle to their ends than Sobel, so the drumline was willing to play along and keep up appearances for as long as necessary before going back to whatever tradition passed down by their age-old predecessors back when Toccoa High’s Marching Band was founded in 1969.

Eugene didn’t regret not being part of the drumline at all (especially because of the aforementioned issues they had to deal with), he told himself. After all, their band camp lasted for a week longer than the rest of the band (and, on occasion, they may keep practicing for an additional 45 minutes at the end of the camp day, long after everyone else had packed up and driven home). And there was the fact they were constantly underneath the full force of the sun and Eugene burned easily.

Then again, Edward Heffron was part of the drumline, so there was that.

“God, I can’t wait until we break for lunch,” said Augusta Chiwy, a junior who played the keyboard. She rested her head in her hands, her fingers getting lost in her afro of tight curls. “How many hours left?”

“130 hours give or take,” Spina said.

“You know what I mean,” Augusta groaned. 

“I don’t know what you’re complaining about,” Spina said, gesturing towards the rest of the band, who were now in the process of dispersing to their dots, about to embark on the terrifying next step of band camp: moving while playing their instruments. “We could be those poor bastards, passing out all over the place. Speaking of which … ” He paused, eyeing the marchers on the blacktop. “Neon yellow baseball cap on the 45 looks like he's about to faint. Any takers?”

Eugene muttered a sharp "I got it" and went to his feet before Spina said anything more. He raced towards the 45 yard line where, sure enough, there was a kid with a neon yellow baseball cap looking wobbly on his feet. He was barely keeping his trumpet pointed in the air and Eugene knew that if he dropped that instrument, he’d have a lot more to deal with than simply his own hurt feelings. 

_ Sobel would be far more sympathetic to the dented instrument than a passed-out _ _kid,_ Eugene thought.

“Hey, kid,” he told the freshman to grab his attention. He observed the situation around him and knew that it was only a matter of time before Sobel, or the drum majors, instructed the band to start moving. And the last thing he wanted to do was navigate a barely-conscious freshman through the mayhem of overconfident marchers. “You’re going on a break.”

“What?” The kid said, and Eugene knew that he probably didn’t have the clearest pronunciation on the planet, but he was close enough to the kid that he was pretty sure the kid ought to have heard him. So, if he was having trouble comprehending Eugene, the situation was dire. Hell, the kid looked pale even though it was ninety degrees outside.

“Break. Now.” Eugene said, stating each word deliberately. He wrapped his hand around one of the kid’s arms. As Eugene walked down the blacktop towards the curb, he waved his hand to get Sobel’s attention. 

Sobel opened his mouth, to say something rude no doubt, but Eugene beat him to the punch. 

“Water,” Eugene said, silently daring the band instructor to say anything about it. Eugene kept walking underneath Sobel’s frown. 

“Hey, Gene!” Eugene heard as he walked passed the drumline who were still doing their own personal drills. Edward Heffron had somehow, between the time of Eugene getting up to the kid to now, had acquired a bright purple bandana that was wrapped around his forehead. Some of his red hair hung stuck hung over the bandana. Edward did this weird nodding thing with his chin that made Eugene briefly concerned that he had Tourettes or something. “‘Sup.”

Eugene blinked, tightening his grip on the pale freshman. He racked his head for something, anything, to say. It was just his luck, he figured, thinking about Edward more than was probably necessary but coming up blank whenever there was an opportunity to say anything. 

Finally, after standing there for a dangerously long amount of time, he looked the redhead up and down. “Your knees are locked, Edward.”

_ Why did I say that? _

“Wha-” the redhead began, glancing down before raising his head and scowling. “I  _ told _ you,” Edward said with an affronted look on his red face. “It’s  _ Babe!” _

“Sorry!” Eugene said hurriedly, helping the freshman off the blacktop. As he felt his face begin to burn up, not from the sun this time, he was sure that it was about as red as Edward’s,  _ Babe’s, _ hair by now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in case it went over anyone's head, augusta chiwy was who the black nurse in the bastogne episode was based on. in the show, they called her "anna", but her real life counterpart worked alongside renée lemaire and survived the blast that killed renée since she was in the building next door. she ended up being pretty decorated, but a lot of people assumed she died in the war (also, stephen ambrose called her "anna" in the book, so he kinda missed the mark there). just figured this fic was pretty low on female characters, so i picked up who i could. also, i thought her story was cool!
> 
> again, leave a comment if you've enjoyed so far!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> does this chapter have anything to do with anything? probably not but it is what it is

The second day of band camp was finally over and Talbert was walking a dog.

An observation like that wouldn’t have seemed that out of the ordinary in any other situation, especially since it was focusing on Talbert. The guy just  _ knew  _ animals. Cats never scratched or hissed at him. Dogs never barked at him. Years ago at a summer camp Lipton had attended with Talbert, actually where he met the guy, he’d watched Talbert get the hand of riding a pony at the first try. Sometimes birds would land on his arms like he was the reincarnation of Snow White (and it happened more than enough times to make it uncanny). Even bugs never bit him, if that was worth anything. Even if you didn’t take into account all the previous stuff, it was the fact that Talbert never needed bug spray that captivated many of his friends.

Eugene once said something about Talbert having a “calming presence”, not unlike Renée. Not that Lipton had any reason to distrust Eugene’s judgement (and Lipton’s been witness to enough evidence with the animals), but he’d seen Talbert start a fight on the school bus over something that even he couldn’t remember after the fight was over. He’d seen Talbert scream his voice out at a tv screen during a tense football game. He’s seen Talbert vomit outside of a classroom due to plain old nervousness. Talbert was many things, Lipton would admit that, but “calming” wasn’t one of them.

But the thing that confused Lipton at the moment was the dog. Not that it was a dog, but that it was a different dog.

“Hey, Tab!” Lipton called to him. He just left the band room with and the trombone case he was holding swung at his side. His calves were sore and his shirt and hair was drenched with sweat and his feet were in  _ pain _ . All he wanted to do was collapse on his mattress and become dead to the world for the nest how many hours before it started again the next day. And that was still a priority. But Lipton needed to get this sorted out first.

“Hey, Iced Tea,” Talbert waved with his free hand. With the other, he held a bright blue leash and a Yorkshire Terrier was walking around in a circle, looking up occasionally with perked ears whenever something caught it’s interest. “How you doing?”

“Aren’t you going home?” Lipton asked, eyes still on the dog.

“Yeah, but I live, like, right around the corner. It’s no big thing.” Talbert saw where Lipton was looking and grinned. “You met Leia?”

“Leia?” Lipton asked with disbelief. “Her name’s Leia?”

“What’s wrong with Leia?”

“Nothing’s wrong with Leia.”

“Between Floyd and Leia, I’d rather my name was Leia.”

“Right,” Lipton said, nodding. “Anyway, is that a new dog? I swear you had a Chihuahua, like, two days ago.” Lipton remembered the hyper dog, barking up a storm if it were anywhere away from Talbert for too long. It’s name was Sandy, if Lipton recalled correctly.

“I do have a Chihuahua. And Leia.”

“Huh. How many dogs do you have anyway?”

It was then that Lipton’s ride pressed on their horn. The plan after camp was to go movie hopping at the nearest theater, sweaty as they were. It wasn’t Lipton’s idea. It was probably Luz’s.

Toye’s waved his hand out the window and gestured at his truck, asking him what the hell was taking him so long. Shortly after came the voice of Luz singing Rent’s “Take Me Baby” at the top of his lungs outside of his window. Except, instead of saying “Take Me Baby”, he sang “Take Me Lipton”.

“Hey Lipton! Don’t you want your Luz  _ HOT!” _

Lipton cringed, sighing loudly. For the moment, he decided not to press for an answer to his question. “Yeah, well. Have fun with Leia.”

Talbert waved him a goodbye and went on his way. Lipton walked towards Toye’s truck, glancing over his shoulder once with a bewildered look on his face.

“Y’all know how many dogs Tab has?” he asked Toye and Luz once he’d entered the truck and shut the door behind him.

“What, like besides Tobey?” Luz asked as Toye asked, “Other than Carface.”

Lipton was momentarily struck dumb. “Hold on, I thought it was just Sandy and now there’s this Leia. Just how many dogs does Tab have?”

Luz gave an exaggerated shrug while Toye set the truck on drive. “Far too many.”

“Anyway, the theater’s showing Terminator, Alien, Rush Hour, and Army of Darkness,” Luz began, for what for sure to be a detailed plan about their schedule this evening. “Now, for times sake, I’m thinking we could miss the last ten minutes of Terminator to sneak it into Alien. We can start the night with Rush Hour—”

“We’re ending the night with Rush Hour,” Lipton said. “That’s way too much horror. We’re ending the night in a way that I can actually go to sleep when I go home.”

Luz groaned, but conceded. “ _ Fine _ . Who’s buying the popcorn?”


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> note: time skips around a lot bc me talking about every day of bandcamp eventually gets redundant ([x] picks up horns, [x] practices, etc.), so yeah!

The first week of band camp was finally coming to a close. But when Ed Tipper exited his mom’s car that Friday morning with his mellophone case in hand, he knew that an incident was about to begin. He could feel the inbound bullshit in his bones.

He saw the three boys, Donald Malarkey, Skip Muck, and Alex Penkala. They all looked like they were waiting for him, and all three of them wore an eager smile on their faces. Like the fucking harbingers of Tipper’s prophesied misfortune.

“No,” Tipper said. He attempted to make a beeline to the band room but was stopped by a hoard of marchers rushing into the building at the same time.

“Tipper! How ya doing, pal o’ mine,” Skip said, his smile even bigger than before, if that was possible.

“Whatever you guys are planning, I’m not getting roped into it.” Tipper hugged his instrument case to his chest. “Not again.”

“Again?” Skip said. “Pssh!”

“Who said we were planning anything?” Penkala asked, his face looking innocent enough but his voice not able to solidify the act.

“You’re planning  _ something _ ,” Tipper asserted. “You got that crazy look in your eyes.” Which was true for the most part. Malarkey was wearing a Seattle Mariners baseball cap. His face was hidden in its shade, but Tipper could still imagine his eyes looked as crazy as his friends.

Skip threw a hand over his heart in mock distress. “Tipper, you  _ wound  _ me.”

“You always get that look right before you ask me to do something that almost gets me killed.”

“Key word being “almost”,” Malarkey said, like it was an important distinction to make.

Tipper’s mouth dropped open. “That- that’s  _ not _ the key word! Are you kidding me?” Tipper began to list off a series of pranks he’d been coerced to perform on Sobel, with the help of the terrible trio. He was always the secret ingredient since Sobel, for whatever reason, believed Tipper could do no wrong. He was still an ass to him, just less of an ass compared to how he treated everyone else.

“No one gets hurt,” Penkala asserted.

“I almost always  _ die!” _

“C’mon, man,” Malarkey said, as if it was Tipper who missing the point here. “You were never at any risk of dying. You’re protected by a higher power that shields you from Sobel’s wrath and judgement.” Skip and Penkala nodded in agreement as Malarkey continued. “It’s like you’re constantly rolling a nat 20 in life.”

“I don’t play your weird nerd games,” Tipper muttered.

“But, seriously,” Malarkey went on, choosing to not make a comment about “weird nerd games” while the faces of Penkala and Skip looked downright offended and vindictive respectivly. “This is a matter of justice. It’s a matter of taking back what’s rightfully ours. For too long, we’ve been denied the right to leave school grounds for lunch without consequence and, damn it, if I want hot and ready crappy pizza from down the road, then I should be allowed to get hot and ready crappy pizza!”

“We sacrifice our literal blood, sweat, and tears to this establishment, and for what?” Skip said, deciding to take up the mantle. “To be placed under some kinda house arrest where we can’t leave the grounds just because Hall got hit by a car two years ago? That’s Hall’s problem.”

John Hall was a former member of the marching band. He was a fairly soft-spoken kid who managed to be one of the first freshmen that year to memorize all their music and was also notable in the way they held off complaining about the heat and the humidity and the constant drills. Hall also left the school grounds during lunchtime one day of band camp to go get small fries (or so the rumor went). One thing led to another, and Hall (who had decided to walk on his own) got hit by a careless driver. With his leg broken and nose bleeding and immediate withdrawal from the marching band, Sobel implemented a new rule that lunch could only be brought from home before the day began or gotten from the vending machines inside the school. No more burgers, no more tacos. Most importantly, no more pizza, not even the crappy kind.

Tipper frowned. “That’s kind of rude, Skip.”

Malarkey muttered in agreement, shoving Skip, while Penkala said, “Yeah, you should dial it back. It’s not Hall’s fault. I mean, it’s Hall’s fault for being stupid and going by himself, but still.”

Skip rolled his eyes. “Yeah, look, what I’m trying to get at is that we’re seniors. Well,” he gestured at Tipper. “You’re not, but this is why the older generation fights for the rights of the generations to come.”

“It’s for the defense of civil liberties!” Malarkey, said nodding.

“Sticking it to the man!” Penkala added

“We have a  _ dream _ , today!” Skip finished.

Tipper brought his instrument case to his face and loudly groaned into it. Voice muffled by the instrument, he asked, “Good _God_ _! _ If I agree to whatever it is you haven’t told me yet, will you guys shut up and leave me alone?”

“Oh yeah, sure,” Skip said, followed by similar agreements and assurances by Malarkey and Penkala. Seconds later, they went on to discuss their plan entitled Operation “Sobel Hears a Horton”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> would it have made more sense for sink to be the previous band instructor? perhaps, but i could make a joke with horton's name and what is the point of life if you can't make jokes?
> 
> and tipper is such a minor character (like he's tagged in only 10 fics on ao3) and that scene where he's with sobel saying "i think it's major horton, sir" is so iconic, so i decided to do that lol


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> would something like the following actually happen irl? idk, but high schoolers are menaces and my marching band was no stranger to doing insanely off-the-wall shenanigans.

“You want me to do what now?” George Luz asked, lowering his trumpet. Luz, along with Frank Perconte and Shifty Powers, were in the process of organizing the stand-tunes for the marching band season. Heavily annotated sheet music littered the floor of the practice room they were in and loose pages threatened to fall off the music stands they were placed on. Some of the stand-tunes they performed dated back long before they were born, played by marchers who based them on popular tunes of their time. Stand-tunes, in Luz’s opinion, were a beautiful thing. Sometimes, the most simple five-note tune could energize the student section of the bleachers during game nights like  _ magic _ . Band show themes came and went, marchers grew grey and died, but stand-tunes were forever.

The trumpet players had been in the Tuba Room, named such because of the all the Sousaphones in it (it wasn’t called the “Sousaphone” Room because it didn’t roll off the tongue, or that was the reason Luz was given as a freshman). The unspoken rule of the Tuba Room was that it was strictly for the use of tuba players, but it hadn’t been that big of a deal in previous years. Brass players and percussionists were occasionally allowed inside (woodwinds, especially the clarinets, were banned indefinitely because of a never-discussed incident regarding a blue-raspberry slushie that occurred before Luz attended Toccoa High and time would tell if the ban would ever be rescinded).

(As an aside, Hall was also a clarinet player and while the Hall Incident was in no way connected to the incident that banned the clarinets from the Tuba Room, it was yet another reason for the dislike for that section in particular.)

However, with the influx of new tuba players this year and the sudden crowded feeling of a room that used to feel far more spacious, Johnny Martin had not-so-kindly requested that the trumpet players “for the love of God, go to one of the practice rooms or  _ something _ ”, so they did. But it sucked because “Practice Room Two” didn’t roll off the tongue either.

“I’m sorry, Operation  _ what?” _ Perconte asked. The short trumpet player’s black hair was neatly slicked back (someone asked what he put in his hair, and he’d simply replied that it was valve oil) and he wore a t-shirt with arm holes torn halfway down the shirt, as did all the trumpet players. It helped with the incessant heat. It also looked cool.

“Operation ‘Sobel Hears a Horton’,” Ed Tipper repeated, looking for all the world that he’d rather be talking about something else. “I did’t come up with the name, btw. That’s all Skip.”

“So I’m supposed to, what?” Luz asked. “Pretend to be our old band instructor to convince Sobel to get his act together?”

Oliver Horton, or The Major as he was called by his students, had retired two years prior, back when Luz and the rest of the seniors were still sophomores. The seniors and the juniors were the only people in the band who held any memories of the fargone days of Horton’s reign. Freedom to talk on the field without threat of laps. The ability to leave campus for lunch. Not being required to wear their band t-shirts ever Friday home game. And, sure, Horton was strict. All instructors had their moments. But he earned the band’s respect, and the respect of all the marchers at Toccoa High who had been taught by him over the past twenty years. But once Sobel came, things started to disappear. Gone was the free careless chatter of band students on the blacktop. Gone were actual water breaks, not these “Gush and Go’s” that had been implemented.

And most importantly, gone were the days of being able to leave the school and buy pizza. Not just during camp, but during home games once football season began. All the students risked getting kicked out of the band if they broke this one  _ stupid _ rule.

So, of course, Luz had to do it. Whatever it was.

The plan was this, Tipper explained to him: Tipper was to discreetly pocket Sobel’s cellphone. The phone number for The Major was saved onto Sobel’s contacts list. Somehow, without Sobel noticing, Tipper would have to delete all of Sobel’s contacts before slipping the phone back into Sobel’s pocket, leaving Sobel to think it was a result of a faulty phone update when he unlocked his phone (Lord knows the man had no concept of technology). Tipper would then play the eager helper, selflessly inputting Sobel’s contacts back into his phone. However, rather than correctly input The Major’s number, he’d input Luz’s instead. This was where Luz would come in.

Luz, and a few other students (so as not to allow Sobel to connect the dots) would leave the blacktop and “go to the bathroom” (although, not all at once; it would be gradual) where Luz would dial Sobel’s number. Sobel, thinking it was The Major’s number, would halt practice to answer the call. Luz would imitate The Major’s voice, giving the impression that he didn’t like the things he had heard about the way he was running the band (and maybe talk about the weather or whatever it was people that age talked about). Bada bing, bada boom, Sobel would get knocked cold by the reprimand and get rid of all the inane changes he had made to the band and the band would finally be able to sleep easy.

That’s if everything went according to plan.

“Because if it doesn’t work, he’ll probably kill me,” Tipper finished.

“He ain’t gonna kill you,” Luz said.

“Maim is more like it,” Perconte added.

Luz whacked the back of Perconte’s head with his free hand.

“He  _ ain’t _ gonna kill him, Perco. If anyone gets killed, it’ll be me. Tipper’s got, like impossible invulnerability against Sobel.” To Tipper, Luz continued, “You’re like a cockroach and I mean that in the nicest possible way.”

“Really?” Tipper asked, in the kind of tone that most people utilized when they actually wanted to say “Shut up, Luz” but were too nice to actually say it.

“When Sobel eventually triggers the zombie apocalypse, you’ve gotta be on my team. That’s all I’m saying.”

“Ten bucks says this won’t work,” Shifty said, breaking his silence as he’d been listening intently the whole while. He was currently crouched on the ground, gathering up all the scattered sheet music. “Look, Sobel’s an idiot, but he’s not stupid, y’know what I mean? The guy’s got a sixth sense for bullshit.”

“ _ The guy’s got a sixth sense for bullshit _ ,” Luz said, imitating Shifty’s voice to an uncanny degree. Perconte cackled from where he stood while Shifty gave Luz a mildly disturbed look. “I could do this in my sleep. I was born for this.”

“What time do you plan on borrowing his phone?” Shifty asked standing back up. “I need time to get popcorn so I can watch you guys screw up.”

“Ye of little faith,” Luz said, shaking his head.

“What time?” Tipper said. “Camp starts in eight minutes so … “ he closed his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose, and rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet. “Like, right now.” He opened his eyes and rested his arms to his side. “Can you guys hype me up or something? I feel like I might throw up.”

“ _ Tipper! Tipper! Tipper!”  _ The trumpet players whisper-chanted, pumping their fists in the air. 

“Okay. Can’t believe I’m saying this, but Operation “Sobel Hears a Horton” is a go.” Tipper turned around, his clutching his mellophone case so tightly the whites of knuckles shows. As the door to Practice Room Two opened and closed behind him, Luz could barely make out the younger marcher mutter, “I’m too fucking young to die.”

“Alright,” Luz began, facing the two other marchers. He cleared his throat and began to say the next sentence in a pitch-perfect imitation of The Major. “Let’s get this show on a roll!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> leave kudos or a comment if you've enjoyed reading so far!


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gay rights is being able to write "his boyfriend" multiple times in one chapter

If Joe Toye had a penny for everytime he glanced at George Luz and thought to himself “What the hell is Luz doing?”, he’d be a very rich man right now.

And one would think that someone who asked that question at least thrice daily would do their best to ignore said question by now. Especially if said someone was Toye’s boyfriend. But it was the fault of others for never pegging Toye as a curious type. Cool as he was, and he was  _ very _ cool if he did say so himself, he liked being in the know about certain happenings without necessarily being “in the know”. Stealth was the name of the game. Being on the “down low”. Off the radar.

Sunglasses helped with that, especially the sunglasses he was wearing currently. It was a very sunny day and Toye tanned easily and at the back of his mind he knew that he’d get a stupid brown tan around his sunglasses on his face and that it’d be annoying until it faded sometime in September, but for now they made Toye look like a badass. And “badasses” didn’t get obviously engaged in gossip, as far as most people were concerned.

Best thing about sunglasses, however, was that no one could tell if he were sleeping or watching someone set up a very stupid prank.

Before the band gathered at the front of the band room for some basic announcements (“Forecast says it might rain.”, “Don’t forget your sunscreen.”, “We found an inhaler in the lost and found. Who does it belong to?”), Toye remembered seeing Luz (and Perconte and Shifty) exit Practice Room Two walking around in the sort of way that people tended to when they had something to hide but were overcompensating in the way they were pretending otherwise. 

Toye, at the moment, chose to ignore it for the time being. He’d find out whatever it was soon enough. Maybe Luz and Shifty could keep tight-lipped about things (Toye had tried every trick in the book to wrangle out what his Christmas present was gonna be last year, but his boyfriend's mouth could be a steel trap when he wanted it to be). But God knows Perconte couldn’t keep a secret if his life depended on it. 

Now that they were practicing outside, Toye didn’t understand how it could be almost week two of band camp and freshmen were still tripping over their clown feet. He didn’t remember ever being this shitty at marching when he was fourteen.

Unfortunately, he had muttered “I don’t remember ever being this shitty at marching when I was fourteen” a little too loudly and a little too near Lipton. The blond piccolo player simply smiled and suggested that Toye set an example for the freshmen and march with them since it bothered him so much.

And Guarnere, the bastard, enthusiastically agreed and helped with strategically positioning Toye next to the freshmen trumpet players (and freshmen were already annoying to begin with, but freshmen  _ trumpet players? _ That was its own damn circle of hell). Such a transgression would never be forgiven nor forgotten. Gonorrhea was gonna have to watch his back for the rest of the week.

“Alright, we’re gonna try that again,” Harry Welsh said from the viewing tower, grinning his gap-toothed grin. His curly sand-colored hair reflected the sun so much it was almost blinding. Welsh wore a pink bandana around his forehead that matched the pink bandana that Kitty wore wrapped around her hair. Now that he thought about it, the whole trombone sectioned seemed to be wearing those pink bandanas. Bandanas, for whatever reason, seemed to be the trend this camp just like how face paint was the trend the year before. 

Granted, the face paint was banned after said paint spilled into an ugly psychedelic spew on the floor of the band room (near the trumpet section, to be clear). Toye wasn’t sure how bandanas would get ruined for everyone, but he wouldn’t put it past this band.

It was only the drum majors outside right now. Sobel wasn’t anywhere in sight (thank  _ fucking God) _ . Nixon and Speirs were walking amongst the band, giving the freshmen tips on how to march and hold their instruments (at least, he assumed Speirs was helping. Even while Nixon managed to say something constructive, Speirs would kinda just glare until the issue was fixed). Winters had been on the tower with Welsh but had gone inside the band room for something or another).

“Everyone wanna play the first note of bar 24,” Welsh instructed. He began conducting in fours, raising his hand at the fourth count as a cue for the band to play the note.

Wasn’t the best idea since the band was still a little hazy on anything after bar 18.

Welsh made a cringing face and his arms fell to his side. “Sorry. I’m an idiot. Everyone point at me and say “Welsh, you’re an idiot”.”

A round of laughter and half-hearted “Welsh, you’re an idiot”s (and the Terrible Trio yelling “We love you, Welsh!”) came from the band. Welsh’s face was red, but he was still grinning as he gestured for the band to quiet down.

“Okay, y’all” Welsh said, eyes scanning the open binder of music before him. “No music this time. Just hold your instruments up. Everyone go to your first dot and, from there, to dot 15.” 

Once Toye and everyone else made it back to their opening position on the field, seniors began calling out instructions across the blacktop.

“Point your horns towards the 50!”

“March in a straight line!”

“Roll your feet!”

“ _Left_ foot!” Toye shouted to no freshman in particular since nearly all of them began marching with the right foot like they haven’t been over this 100 times already. "Your other left, Dukeman," he said to the freshman trombone player a few feet in front of him.

Welsh raised his arms up and began conducting. “Two, three, four…”

And the band got to moving. It was too much to hope for, that no one would bump into each other (or that the trombone players would misjudge the length of their slides, for one). Feet flew across the blacktop as the seniors and juniors (and some sophomores) got to their dots on time while everyone else started off too slow and made up for it by practically running to their last position.

“Okay,” Welsh said, as if he meant to say “Yikes”, but that wouldn’t have been productive. “You guys need to follow my hands and get to your dots at the same time. That’s the goal here. But, uh…” Welsh cocked his head to the side, as if considering something. “Who wants to go back to the metronome for now?”

Countless hands shot to the air.

“Right. Nix, you got that cowbell?”

Nix did, in fact, have a cowbell. He started clanging the damn thing at the specified tempo as Welsh began to conduct the band once again. 

With a steady sense of rhythm, moving to the dots this time was less of an absolute clusterfuck.

“Tie your shoes,” Toye told a freshman to the left of him once there was a short break after getting to dot 15. The drumline was less of a pod now; they were aligned in a straight line that went down the 30 yard line. Babe, Guarnere, and their freshman were all in front of him with Toye at the back. “Now,” he continued when the freshman proceeded to do a whole lot of nothing.

“I’m fine,” the freshman said. The fuck was his name?

_ The fuck does it matter, _ Toye thought.  _ I’ll figure it out eventually. _

“It won’t be fine when you face plant onto the burning ground and give yourself a bloody nose and a chipped tooth,” Toye said nonchalantly. 

“I can walk,” and Toye couldn’t understand the audacity that the youth had these days. No sense of respect for the elders who had literally been there, done that, and were trying to shed wisdom onto the newest dumbasses of the world.

“We’re gonna try dots 15 to 20,” Welsh instructed from the tower. “It’ll be step by step, so look at your dot sheet. We learned these last week, so let’s try to put them together.”

“Tie your damn shoes,” Toye said.

“I’m not gonna trip,” the freshman whined, as if this was worth whining over.

“What if I just pushed you?” 

The freshman’s eyes widened as he considered Toye’s words (and let’s be honest, Toye’s sunglasses probably made his statement sound more menacing than it actually was). He was being nice. Because what if this kid never tied his shoes? The actual marching season would begin and the little shit would act so confident on the blacktop and football field, his shoelaces dragging around a whole host of grime and germs that would make Perconte sick to the stomach. Then, they’d get to a school with a football field that didn’t have turf, only brown grass and potholes. What if the freshman marched with misplaced gusto and a devil-may-care swagger? What if his shoelaces got caught on a twig or a weed? What if the shit fell into a hole that he could’ve otherwise avoided, or brushed off, because he didn’t tie his fucking shoes? What if that happened at a game (or, worse, a competition) and the moment would be forever immortalized in one of Sobel’s meticulously organized videos that he made the band watch every Tuesday night after the game the Friday before to show them how best to improve? How would this freshman feel if his face-plant was shown to his peers?

Toye was just trying to save the kid’s life (and dignity), damn it.

“Fine,” the freshman muttered, lowering his trumpet to the ground. He got to his knees and hurriedly looped his laces together.

“Alright, Mr. Hardass. Let’s not threaten the freshmen, alright?” Nixon said from beside him. He was wearing a blue t-shirt that had a Star Wars logo on it, which could in no way belong to Nixon since Nixon didn’t “get” Star Wars references. He hadn’t even watched the series. That shirt belonged to Winters. Toye would stake his life on it.

Toye rolled his eyes at Nixon. Then, realizing that Nixon wouldn’t be able to see it under his ultra-cool sunglasses, said, “I’m rolling my eyes, Nix.”

Nix chuckled and continued walking, assisting other marchers who didn’t know how to get to dot 16.

“Can we take a break?” some freshmen asked near Toye. 

“I need some water!” another freshman added.

As if a reflex, both Toye and Guarnere, from further away, shouted, “Water is for the weak!”

At that moment, the members of the Pit had been rolling their keyboards, timpanis, and drum kits up the blacktop. Spina and Augusta seemed to be arguing about something while Renee talked on the phone as she pushed a drum kit up on her own. Further behind and rolling up a xylophone, Eugene Roe, probably the palest kid Toye had ever met, fixed Toye with such a cold and disapproving glare that Toye had half a mind to apologize.

The front ensemble finally got their instruments into position. Roe broke his glare and picked up a megaphone that had been lying on the ground. It belonged to Sobel but Sobel still wasn’t outside. Roe pressed the ON button and noise crackled from its speaker.

“Welsh,” Roe said into it with his soft sounding voice, although it had a bit of an edge to it. He walked from directly underneath the viewing tower to further onto the blacktop, where Welsh would be able to see him.

“Yeah, Roe?”

“Water break.” And Roe left it at that, pressing the megaphone off and setting it back on the ground before glaring at both Toye and Guarnere again as he shook his head. 

“Well, you heard the man. We’re taking a water break. Five minutes.” Welsh held out his right hand.

“Don’t scrape your instruments!” someone called out. Toye didn’t recognize the voice, which probably meant it belonged to some freshman girl. And judging from the sense of authority she had in her voice, she was probably a woodwind. Shifty would probably bet that it was a clarinet. Toye would take him on that bet.

Nonetheless, the sound of scraping traveled across the blacktop and Toye heard the same girl screech and repeat, “Don’t  _ scrape  _ your  _ instruments! _ ”

As Toye set his drum down on the blacktop, he caught a glimpse of Perconte walking down to the sidewalk with the water-coolers. Toye wasn’t the gossiping type, but he loved being in the know. And, it’d be better to get to Perconte because the guy broke as easy as a potato chip.

“Hey, Perco!” Toye said, heading towards the shorter senior. “How goes it?”

“Um,” Perconte’s eyes darted from Toye towards the band room to Toye again. “It goes— it’s going … going great. Everything’s fine. I’m fine. How are you going? Doing?”

“Uh huh,” Toye said, fighting the urge to smile. He cut to the chase, slapping Perconte’s back. “So what was going on in Practice Room Two?”

“Tipper’s gonna steal Sobel’s phone and Luz is gonna—” Perconte quickly shut his mouth and covered his mouth with his hands. He sped up his walking.

However, Toye’s legs were like the length of Perconte’s entire midget body. “Luz is gonna do what?” he asked, as he caught up to Perconte by taking just a single step. Because,  _ of course,  _ Luz had something to do with it. His loudmouth boyfriend was lucky he was cute.

“Luz is gonna mimic the Major and bring pizza back.”

Toye frowned. “What the fuck?”

“You know what,” Perconte said, smiling nervously. “I’ve said too much. I’m just gonna—” and Perconte ran towards the sidewalk with the water coolers, leaving Toye standing alone.

“What the fuck?” he repeated to no one in particular.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> again, could this realistically happen? idk, but band camp is weird sometimes and my band instructor certainly had marchers take care of (probably personal) chores and stuff so

Tipper had done it, the madman.

Bumping into Sobel and pocketing his cellphone was the hardest and most nerve-wracking part, and Penkala was so scared that Tipper was going to drop it with those butterfingers of his that he nearly shit himself.

Luckily, it didn’t come to that. The pickpocketing (and subsequent re-pocketing) was done so seamlessly that Penkala was now suspicious that Tipper had a side job as a thief or something. 

Sobel, just like they had planned, went through his phone and pinched the bridge of his nose, muttering about stupid phones and stupid updates. Tipper was nothing less than God-sent, approaching Sobel as if the band instructor wasn’t seconds away from blowing his top not unlike the eruption of Mount St. Helens.

“Are you alright, Mr. Sobel?” Tipper had asked.

“Tipper, do me a favor,” Sobel had said from where he stood at the door of the band room underneath the brown band awards that adorned the walls of the band room. Further away, Penkala was kneeled on the floor, tying and re-tying his shoe, soaking his reed in his mouth, all while trying to hear every last word. Sobel handed the marcher his phone. “Take this. My phone book is in the first drawer on the left in my office. It’s grey. If you please, get my contacts back on there. I don’t have time for this today.”

Tipper made a low whistle. “Phone updates, huh?”

“Yep,” Sobel said, walking away in the direction of the double-doors underneath the red Exit sign. “Don’t take too long. We really need to get through the entire first act by the end of today.”

Once Sobel was gone, Penkala heard Tipper saying, “Thank you, Tipper. I appreciate it, Tipper.”

Penkala silently laughed as he stood up. He adjusted the strap of his alto sax and adjusted the red visor on his head. “Didn’t you hear, Tipper? He doesn’t have time for this today.”

Tipper made a face before making his way to Sobel’s office. To this day, Penkala was unaware of any student, besides the drum majors, who were allowed in there. Tipper was truly a lucky son of a bitch.

And so the plan continued.

The only hiccup was the frantic private group chat message (also titled Operation: Sobel Hears a Horton) from Tipper, not a minute after he’d gotten the phone, that he actually didn’t have Luz’s number.

_ CowTipping: what the FUK IS LUZ’S NUMBER??? _

_ YouveBeenPenk’d: get your head in the gamr man!!! _

_ YouveBeenPenk’d: *game _

Penkala followed by quickly replying with the number with one hand while fiddling with his saxophone with the other. Soon after, band officially began and everyone was ordered onto the blacktop.

Penkala had shared worried glances with Muck and Malarkey. Malarkey looked equally worried but Muck simply smiled.

“He’s gonna be fine,” he had said.

And when Tipper handed the phone back to Sobel, Penkala and Malarkey both heaved a sigh of relief while all Muck did was laugh and say “I told you so”. 

All there was left to do was wait. And wait. And die during the hell of band practice and wait some more.


	13. Chapter 13

“Meet me in the bathroom in five,” was what Luz stage-whispered to Floyd Talbert as the flute player was running to the band room to get himself a poptart from the vending machine for his lunch. Normally having a snack like that would be hardly suitable for a lunch, much less a lunch after the demanding work that was band camp (Luz once said that he was hungry enough to eat a horse as an appetizer and still have enough room for the main course). This went double when the flavors were basic unfrosted strawberry or unfrosted brown sugar cinnamon. But, the vending machine had been restocked recently with the hot fudge sundae flavor, a once every-two-months miracle. Talbert wasn’t turning this down.

Hell, he was going to buy three. Or five. This was a blink-and-you-missed it flavor.

Better make that seven. Splurge a little.

“You hittin' on me, Luz?” Talbert asked. It looked like Luz was hyped up on coffee, which was impossible since coffee was nowhere on the high school’s campus during the band camp season, courtesy of the “Why Does My Slide Grease Smell Like Coffee?” Incident of the 1993 band season. Which only meant one thing.

Talbert skidded to a stop and turned on his heels in such a smooth motion, he knew Dick Winters would be proud. Before Luz could continue doing whatever the fuck, he called out. “The hell did you do?”

Luz turned around and he made a cartoonish “zip” motion over his mouth. “Shut it. He could be listening. Bathroom in five!”

“What, has Sobel bugged the air?” Talbert deadpanned. “I don’t know if I should be offended or impressed.”

“Hey! I’m the wiseass here,” Luz said. “Bathroom in four!”

Talbert rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Sure. _Fine_.” He pushed open the doors to the band building and walked the few steps up to the vending machines that lined the walls. One vending machine was filled with soda, but the crap zero and diet kind (the real stuff was secured in the locked-for-the-summer teacher’s lounge and the locked-for-the-summer school store. It would be a cold day in hell before Talbert ever drank Coke Zero of his own free will.

He pressed the numbers for the hot fudge sundae poptarts on the snacks vending machine.

_ D12 _

The machine whirred and the poptart fell to the floor of the machine. Talbert opened up the door of it and pocketed it.

Unfortunately, Talbert wasn’t wearing cargo shorts and it wasn’t until he got to the fourth poptart that he realized he was in dire need of more pockets. But damn it if he wasn’t going to get seven of these things.

He wasn’t sure how long he was standing at the front of the vending machine, trying to stuff the seventh poptart into his now-tight pocket, when Luz slammed open the door to the band building. The trumpet player was followed by a host of other trumpet players, including Perconte, Shifty, and Skinny. Even Joe Toye, despite not being a trumpet player, was there.

Talbert finally shoved the remaining poptart into his pocket, deciding it was still edible even if it was no doubt crushed to dust. “Y’all need excuses, you know that?” he said in his best technically-a-section-leader voice.

“We got ‘em. And then some,” Luz began. “I have to go get my ibuprofen because I’m feeling a migraine coming on.”

“Forgot my inhaler inside my locker,” Shifty said.

“I need to take a personal call regarding my Nana in the hospital. It could be serious,” Perconte said, nodding solemnly.

“I left my dot sheet inside,” Skinny said. “I’m gonna have to do laps tonight, but it’s worth it.”

“I needed to use the bathroom,” Toye said, frowning. “Like, genuinely need to use it. So, get done with this so I can take a piss.”

“He really believed all of you?” Talbert said. “Sobel’s old, but not old enough to start going senile.”

“It’s probably just one of those days,” Luz said, exaggerating a shrug. “Why aren’t you in the bathroom?”

Talbert decided to not point out how strange a question that was in any context. Instead, he looked to his bulging pockets and nodded his head awkwardly. “Hot fudge sundae poptarts. Lunch.”

“Yeah, okay.” Luz said, thankfully not pointing out how strange that answer was. “We’re on the clock. Let’s go!” With that, the group of boys rushed down the hallway and whatever was going to happen, happened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> leave any comment if you've enjoyed reading this so far!


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i apologize in advance in the off chance that anyone who attended lassiter high in georgia is reading this fic. marching band rivalries endure. what can you do?

“God, I hope this works,” Malarkey whispered when he heard the sound of Sobel’s phone ringing. He, along with the rest of the band, were standing at attention. The sun burned his neck and he took a moment to think about, what his section leader freshman year once called, a “wicked neckstrap tan line”. They were in the middle of getting through the first act. Unfortunately for the woodwinds, it involved a lot of big steps that took a while to get the hang of. Even upperclassmen got tripped up over making their steps spaced far enough. They’d get the hang of it eventually, like they always did. For now, Malarkey simply felt like he had two left feet.

While Sobel went through his clipboard, Malarkey felt a buzz in his shorts pocket underneath the pain of his burning muscles. He reached his hand down and turned his phone on. A notification was plastered on his screen over the Lord of the Rings background of the lock screen.

The message was from Luz. It simply instructed Malarkey to “hold onto your butts, comrades”. It took half a second for Malarkey to translate Luz-speak to English, meaning that the Operation was in full effect.

Then, Sobel got the call. 

“Hello?” Sobel said into his phone from the tower.

“I’m gonna shit my pants,” Malarkey heard Tipper say from nearby. The mellophones were in formation next to the woodwinds, forming what was supposed to be a half circle, but currently resembled a zig zag drawn with someone’s non-dominant hand. Malarkey saw the surrounding mellos give odd looks at Tipper before turning their attention back to the tower.

“Horton!” Sobel said, his voice jumping up an octave. His posture snapped into something militaristic, as if he believed the Major could sense his lackluster posture from over the phone. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Nixon, from his position on his step ladder looked from Sobel to the band and waved his hands in a downward motion. 

“Band, you can straight chill for now,” Welsh said while Nixon tried to smother his laugh by coughing. Dick nodded in agreement while Speirs just stared like usual. Frightening motherfucker.

“ _No_ , sir! Um, ah, _yes_ , sir!” Sobel said, sounding distressed. His free hand ran through his black hair as he paced back and forth. “Oh, I absolutely understand, sir.”

“Is it just me,” Skip began from where he was squatting on the ground. Only seconds before, he tried to sit down on the ground, but the blacktop was too hot. “Or does Sobel look pale?”

“Like a sheet of printer paper,” Penkala said. Unlike Skip, and Malarkey for that matter, he was sitting flat on the ground, legs outstretched with the declaration that “pain was only a state of mind”. His face fell, suddenly. “Wait, isn’t that a sign on a heart attack? Or a stroke?”

“The fuck are you talking about?” Skip asked, frowning. In the background, the tone of Sobel’s voice sounded. The remaining marchers either gossipped among themselves or not-so-quietly speculated about what was going on.

“So like, my uncle had a heart attack after watching a horror movie at the dollar theater. It was cheesy crap. Like, it wasn’t  _ scary  _ scary, but that’s not the point. He almost died. If he dies, will we go to hell?”

“No,” Malarkey said before Skip took the stand.

“Nah, Sobel’s going to hell for taking away pizza. I’m sure God’ll sympathize with our plight.”

“Really, Skip?” Penkala said in disbelief. “We kill someone and God’s gonna be like, “That was pretty shitty, but you wanted pizza so bad so, in the end, it all cancels out.”

“‘Course not,” Skip said, waving his hand. “God doesn’t say stuff like “shitty”.”

Malarkey ignored his friends and directed his attention back to the tower. Sobel looked stressed _out._ The tower wasn't meant for pacing, and there he was. Pacing back and forth. Malarkey couldn’t fathom what Luz would saying on the other end of the phone but, between all of Sobel’s nervous ticks (biting his lip, fiddling with the collar of his dark orange polo, the ups and down of the volume from his end of the conversation), it wasn’t good. Which meant it was perfect.

“Band!” 

The saxophones ceased their speculations and quickly stood at attention, blinking up at the tower where the sun shone painfully down on them. Sobel stood at the top, binder discarded at his feet. The man looked distressed. Even more distressed than the time they’d lost first place to Lassiter High at their competition at Vanderbilt University. It was a real bummer, in Malarkey’s opinion. But he didn’t feel too bad about it then, or now, since they’d won second. The redhead didn’t subscribe that much to the opinion that “second placers are first losers”. They’d beaten dozens of bands in order to get that recognition. Like, fuck Sprayberry, but there were always other competitions.

But, seriously, fuck Lassiter.

However Sobel … jeez. That night, the instructor looked like he wanted to shove the first place trophy up the ass of the rival band instructor. It was a sight to see, especially since the scores were reportedly so close.

And here he was. Looking much the same.

“I have an announcement,” the tall man began. “As you know, I expect the best out of this band. I have dedicated a lot of my time towards training you to reach your higher potential.”

Malarkey shared a quick worried glance at Penkala and Skip. Penkala looked equally worried. Skip looked at ease. How the fuck did he look at ease?

“I’m sure you’re all familiar with the rule of staying on campus during the time allotted to you for lunchtime. This, as well as the hours before a home game on Fridays. However,” here, Sobel grimaced and looked, dare he say, embarrassed. “It has come to my attention that this course of action perhaps wasn’t the most advisable course to take. For the time being, I am lifting the ban on leaving campus for lunch.”

The band had the good sense to not do something stupid, like cheer. They all stood patient and suspicious, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Even the freshman behaved.

“This will be on a trial basis. If I am given a foolproof indication that you are mature enough to handle this responsibility,” he said, like he was giving them the ok to perform heart surgery, not get lunch, “the change will be permanent.” Sobel paused. “That will be all.” To the drum majors, he instructed them to lead the band for the time being.

“Luz, the madman,” Malarkey breathed in shock.

“I told you,” Skip said. He dug out his phone from his shorts pocket, unlocked it, and showed them the latest text he got from Luz:

_ Luz: Operation Sobel Hears a Horton was ruled a success. _

“Is this gonna come back and bite us in the ass,” Penkala asked.

Skip shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. We just have to act on our best behavior for our last year. Good luck for the poor fucks after us.”

“Cool, cool, cool,” Malarkey said. His stomach was still tied up in nervous knots, but he felt a smile form on his face. “Anyone up for lunch at Little Caesar’s? Or you wanna take a daytrip to Ma Ma Dar’s?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> leave a comment or kudos if you've enjoyed so far!


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> enter: ronald "the stories about him are probably all bullshit anyway" speirs

Speirs was currently on the second story of the viewing tower. It wasn’t as hot today. Mainly because of the breeze. The humidity was still there, but the breeze made everything feel cooler (even if it actually wasn’t. He cherished every second of it and was sure the other drum majors were as well. He wasn’t one to comment on the weather in general, but now he felt in his bones that if he mentioned how nice the weather was, he’d jinx it and mother nature would spike the temperature surrounding the Toccoa High parking lot out of nothing but pure spite.

He flicked through the drill sheet in the binder like he would a flipbook full of animations (which was quite the trial since flipbooks typically weren’t laminated). The positions of the marchers were marked with an “X” and he watched as they would move into lines and squares and pods and shapes. 

The design of the show was fine enough, he considered. Too bad the theme was such shit.

_ Football? Unbelievable. _

Although, the theme of the show seemed to have evolved a little more. It was still mainly about football, but also about heroics and fanfare. The music was good, which was all that mattered in the end. At the end of the day, it was a better show than the circus themed show his freshman year at Oconee High. Great show for the color guard, but no one likes circus music _that_ much.

It was almost time to begin for the day. Winters and Welsh and Nixon were about to begin conducting since sectionals were finishing up (Nixon, in particular, had taken to wearing those hats with bottles of water on either side of it, drinking water whenever he, as he said, “damn well pleased”). They would stand on their stepladders spread up at the front of the band. Four drum majors might seem like a little much, but the band was growing and it was what it was. Better than having just one because then some especially short freshman would complain about not being able to see the front of the field.

Speirs decided to check out everyone on the ground. A little “face the front” here, a little “feet towards the 50” there. Advice and whatnot. Everyone needed it and groaning in annoyance was only going to set them back, progress-wise.

That was until he got to the sousaphones and noticed Albert Blithe.

Albert Blithe, one of the new sousaphone players (who, despite being a sophomore, had about as much experience as a freshman), poor guy, looked confused as hell standing on the back hash of the 30 yard line. The kid looked as though he was seconds away from tripping over his own feet whenever he happened to look his way.

But little did the majority of the band know, Speirs played the sousaphone himself back when he was in at Oconee High. It wasn’t a fact he had advertised yet, but someone would find out eventually. He was full of experience and now was the time to convert that to well thought-out advice.

“Blithe!” he called out, just as the other three drum majors clapped four times and shouted  _ “Band Ten Hut!” _ , shortly followed by an instruction to keep their horns at attention.

It was admirable, watching the band jump to attention in record time before listening intently to the instructions that came from Winters. Only a few people lagged, but only one didn’t move an inch.

Blithe looked what Speirs’s old band instructor would call “dog-tired” (pun very much intended). His red face was covered in a sheen of sweat and his beige shirt was nearly dark brown due to the sweat making said shirt stick to his skin. His breaths were labored and his large blue eyes held a cold threat within that Speirs had seen many times before during the long and scorching days at Oconee High’s 9-to-9 band camp. The look said “I can’t do this anymore”.

That wasn’t even getting into how Blithe would continuously stalk away to the band building, asking for a bathroom break near twice an hour. If Speirs didn’t know any better, he would’ve thought the blond passed enough for the whole band.

Here and there, Blithe got the impression was a stone throw away from quitting the band. It wasn’t uncommon. Something like one to three kids on average per band season couldn’t stick it out. It was unfortunate in Speirs’s opinion. He’d been witness to the feeling of victory during a band competition and it was something he wished everyone had the opportunity to feel. 

He just needed to get Blithe to see that somehow.

“Let’s talk, Blithe,” Speirs said, cocking his head to his left near the woods that lined the back of the blacktop.

Speirs watched Blithe’s eyes widen and share glances with Hoobler, Garcia, and Hashey as he spun around widely. Blithe looked back at Speirs before nodding to himself and removing the sousaphone, placing it down next to his dot. Speirs had time, as far as he was concerned. It sounded like Winter’s little announcement was going to take a while.

“How are you feeling, Blithe?” he asked, wanting the younger boy to enter the conversation feeling somewhat at ease. Speirs knew of the rumors regarding him that grew from something small to its own monster, not that he was entirely innocent of it. If he got some of his old friends from Oconee High to pass along exaggerated rumors about the new drum major, all the better. Speirs didn’t like people in his real business. If the Toccoa kids were gonna pry, they may as well pry into something fictional.

Also, attending a new school allowed a way for Speirs to reinvent himself, he had no qualms against reinventing himself to sound like a badass.

Anyway.

“Fine,” Blithe lied, his face as red as a damn lobster. This pale kid was gonna have his face start peeling if he didn’t know any better. It was damn near 100 degrees out. “I’m fine. It’s kinda hot, though.”

_ Understatement _ , Speirs thought, recalling the forecast of a high of 97 degrees (along with 43 percent humidity).

“It’s a tough sport, marching band,” Speirs said to the sophomore. “Lots of fun to have, don’t get me wrong. 

“Yeah,” Blithe began. From the looks of it, he was planning on saying something more, but Speirs continued on.

“But make no mistake,” he warned. “Marching band can chew you up and spit you out, whether or not you want it to. Sometimes, the only hope you have is to accept that you’re already dead.”

Blithe’s eyes widened and he looked a little less red. Maybe paler, but that suggested to Speirs that his words were getting through to the boy.

“But it's grueling nature that makes it. Every burn of your calves, every bead of sweat, is making you a stronger musician in the end. A stronger person overall. Stamina for days. Your probability for taking whatever life throws at you and chucking it back increases exponentially at the end of each day of this camp.”

“Sure,” Blithe began, although it still looked as if the blond was failing to understand anything Speirs was saying although he was confident he was explaining this in simple terms. “Uh …”

“That’s why, if you’re having any problems keeping up, don’t  _ ever  _ hesitate to come to me, or any of the other Majors, for help.”

“Oh. Okay,” Blithe nodded. “I’ll take you up on that, I guess. It’s just—”

“Yeah?”

“I’m having trouble with some of the music, actually.” Blithe’s face went a deeper red, this time not from the heat. “Some of the notes are … I can’t reach some of the notes.”

“For now, just remember that a sousa is just like the tuba. Only difference is that it wraps around you and you’re sprinting across the field while playing the circle of fifths or whatever.”

Blithe laughed softly, almost nervously. “Yeah, I can do that.”

“Oh, and one last thing.” Speirs reached for his back pocket and pulled out a folded Phillies baseball cap that he’d nicked somewhere sometime before. Fuck if he knew who the original owner was. The original owner must’ve not cared enough about it to leave the cap at any random place. “Here.” He waved it in Blithe’s direction.

“Uh… “ Blithe began.

“If you don’t put sunscreen on your face, you at least need to cover it somehow. Nothing hurts more than a burnt face.”

A look of understanding came into Blithe’s eyes and the blonde took the cap from Speirs, fixing it onto his head. “Um … thanks, Speirs.”

Speirs gave a single nod and pointed to the low brass section of the band, signifying the end of the conversation. As Blithe jogged to the area of the blacktop where the rest of the sousas were standing (all staring in shock at the cap Blithe was waving in the air), Speirs made his own way to the front of the field where Dick and Welsh were reading a binder together. 

His work here was just getting started.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope y'all liked this chapter (peep that famous speirs quote that i needed to add regardless of the context!)
> 
> leave kudos or a comment if you've enjoyed reading this!


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> featuring the drumline gang!

It was the hottest afternoon of band camp this year and Sobel was clearly suffering from some form of heat exposure because the man had clearly lost his damn mind.

To be fair, Julian had nothing to go on but hearsay about how band camps ought to be. Sobel had been the head instructor for two years and ruled with an iron fist. Word was, camp was far more lenient in the “good old days”. Word was, it’d only get worse come September, whatever that meant.

All Julian knew was that it was 100 degrees out, at least, and they’d only had one water break. More than an hour ago. He loved the snare drums (and, God, he couldn’t get enough playing them. So much so his Ma at home practically begged him to join the band back in middle school if only to release his tapping-on-every-surface energy into something productive). But he loved water just as much. 

He couldn’t believe it sometimes, his growing affinity for water. He used to subsist solely on Fanta and Mountain Dew and Root Beer. And here was, overwhelmingly willing to take a glass of water over any of the previous beverages.

“What part of _keep your horns up_ are you having a difficulty understanding?” Sobel shouted from the tower, probably directed a quaking freshman. Julian had tried to carry a trombone for an hour and he couldn’t make it 20 minutes. Sobel needed to ease up.

“Jeez,” Guarnere muttered. Julian watched him nimbly flip his drumstick between and over the fingers of his right hand. “I wanna see him marching with a bass drum with no shade.”

Babe laughed in agreement while Toye said, “Imagine him getting stung by a bee and Dick telling him to “walk it off”.”

Guarnere snorted at that while Julian winced. He hated how the bees frequented the area where the water and blue gatorade was set up on the sidewalk adjacent to the blacktop. That was another reason he began to appreciate water. Bees weren’t willing to risk it all over that drink. Water was safe.

“When’s he gonna let us get a water break?” the Freshman, Julian, asked, his mind now singularly focused on water. Water this, water that. His throat was parched while the middle of his shirt was soaked in sweat. He knew that the blacktop beneath his sneakers burned something fierce, but it couldn’t be too bad to simply lie down and take an uncomfortably hot nap.

“We’re never gonna have a water break again,” Guarnere said, solemnly. “We play until we die.”

“Sixth rule of band camp,” Toye began. He was gonna have a wicked sunglasses line by the end of the summer.. “Write a Will.”

“Actual factual,” Babe added.

“Really?” Julian whined, scuffing the sole of his shoe against the ground. Half of him knew the responses were in jest, the other half was far too thirsty to care. “Why the heck is he the way that he is?”

“I could read you a list,” Guarnere answered. “But I charge by the hour.”

“Jesus _fucking_ Christ,” Julian muttered to himself.

“Hey!” Babe said, shocked.

“Watch your fucking language, kid!” Toye barked.

“You, talking in the back,” Guarnere saw Sobel gesture in the general direction of the drumline. “Laps at the end of practice, all of you.”

The drumline collectively shrugged under the weight of an uncaring sun.

“Who cares?” Guarnere said, once Sobel seemed out of earshot.

“I’m already ripped,” Toye agreed.

“He’s right though,” Babe began, looking at Julian. “It’s hot and I’m thirsty as fuck.”

Julian’s mouth dropped and he looked wildly between the two other members of the drumline. “What? How come you don’t care when he says it?”

“Seniority,” the three of them said in unison, earning them an additional warning from Sobel.

Once the drum majors began to conduct, the cue for them to get to attention and recall the next sets they were supposed to march to, Guarnere made a suggestion directed at Julian.

“How about you take one for the team and pretend to pass out. We promise to make a big stink about it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> leave kudos or a comment if you've enjoyed reading!


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm at summer school and this is finals week and i'm Dying, sledge!!!

Either the drumline was loud, or Eugene needed to stop eavesdropping so goddamn much.

He turned away from the drumline, who were attempting to stage some sort of water break con, and began to make his way to the nearest drum major before being stopped by Spina’s hand on his shoulder.

“You could at least let me see this played out,” Spina said.

So it wasn’t him. The drumline was just loud.

Eugene frowned ann turned around. Spina’s hand dropped and Eugene watched him idly finger positions on the bass guitar he was holding. The timpani wasn’t being used for the second act of the show, so Spina took up the opportunity to play the guitar. He was wearing a faded brown Megadeth shirt and the cowboy hat he had come to band wearing was hanging around his neck. 

“Wow,” Eugene frowned, crossing his arms. “That’s incredibly irresponsible, even for you.”

Spina actually pouted. “Look, Gene, it’s hot. I’m baking, and not in a good way. Sobel’s got a flaming sword up his ass. I’m dying for even a bite-sized amount of entertainment, I swear to _Christ_.”

Eugene drew out a long sigh and considered returning to the keyboard. He needed the practice and it was a little exhausting to always have an eye out for the band. But, still. “Spina—”

“What’s the worst that could happen?”

Eugene was unamused, yet his brain decided to be an ass and provide a number of bad scenarios. Someone could get heat stroke. Someone could get dangerously dehydrated. Someone could faint and give themselves a concussion, just like Miller did two years ago. 

He settled on, “Someone could die.”

Spina made a mocking laugh. “No one dies at band camp.”

“You asked for the worst that could happen, Spina, and that’s the worst that could happen.”

Right then, Julian decided to fall. Eugene’s eyes widened as he quickly looked away from Spina and towards that black-haired freshman. Of course, it wasn’t a natural fall; the snare drum player had obviously fallen in such a way that allowed next to no damage to his instrument. It looked awkward and planned. But, if the intended audience was Sobel or Dike, they’d be none the wiser.

“Oh crap!” Guarnere exclaimed dramatically from where the drumline stood, all in various pre-planned poses of shock. “He’s fallen and he can’t get up!”

“We gotta get him to the curb!” Toye said. To Sobel, he shouted, “Permission to carry Julian to the curb?”

Eugene couldn’t see Sobel from his position underneath the tower, but he was surprised by what came next. He should’ve figured that Sobel would become privy to the band’s plans over the years, but he didn’t expect him to say, “Assist Mr. Julian, and the return right back to your dots as soon as you’re done. You can have your water breaks with the rest of the band.”

“But—” Eugene heard Edward begin to argue.

“That’s another lap, Mr. Heffron,” Sobel snapped. “Are you keeping count?”

Eugene saw how the redhead was barely able to hide his scowl, but he, and Toye and Guarnere, helped Julian to the curb. Before the trio left, Edward waved at Eugene (Eugene waved back). Julian looked all sorts of guilty when he sat down, appearing to feign lightheadedness for the sake of the drumline who were punished on his behalf. 

And then, it happened. Perhaps not the worst that could happen, but a strong contender for the top three.

It happened so suddenly, and Eugene was positioned too far away to do anything to stop it before it happened. After the band was instructed in a few more drills, Julian appeared to decide that he had waited enough time to get some water from the coolers.

Eugene wasn’t sure exactly why the boy did what he did, but once he was there it was as if he decided that all that energy that he’d exerted pulling off that acting job deserved to be rewarded with not water, but blue Gatorade.

Except, it was at that moment that the feared bees flew back with a fervor. 

Only seconds after he poured himself a drink, Julian yelped and tossed his almost full cup of blue liquid into the air. Eugene wasn’t sure if the buzzing of the bees had become amplified, or if his ears decided to work ten times better as a way to taunt him for not following through and demanding an actual water break when he had the chance. 

Julian clutched his rapidly reddening throat with both hands and collapsed for real on the ground.

_ “JULIAN!” _ Edward screamed from the field, only a second after Julian fell.

Julian’s mouth gaped open, as if he wanted to respond. But his throat was swelling so fast that no sound came out.

_ “MAN DOWN!” _ someone else shouted, with an edge of panic in their voice.

Eugene’s eyes narrowed and he sprang into action. While the remaining drumline removed their instruments and ran to their comrade’s defence (despite Sobel’s continued chastisements. Along with that, Martin, of all people, appeared to be in a seemingly long-overdue shouting match with Sobel, perhaps done with the knowledge that being one of the band’s top musicians would allow him some sort of leverage), Eugene scrambled through the Pit’s emergency equipment bag, tossing anything that was unimportant. The growing chaotic sounds of the band dulled to his ears as he was focused on doing one thing: finding the damn EpiPen.

He dashed to the curb where Julian, the drumline, and various other members of the band were gathered. There were even some band moms who decided to halt their gossip and attend to the fallen boy. But, unlike any of them, Eugene was the only one with an EpiPen.

“Alright, hey, back away,” Eugene ordered, making his way through the cluster surrounding Julian. Julian’s face was a stark pale against the already swelling skin that was once a normal sized neck. Edward was crouched down next to Julian’s face, giving the younger boy reassurances that everything was going to be okay, that he just needed to hold on.

Eugene could understand the worry. As long as he and Edward had been in this band, they’d never seen a bee sting this severe. You got stung you moved on. It was simple fact of Toccoa band camp life. It was practically a badge of honor the band wore with pride. Oh, they might say, just you wait. Toye got stung in the arm just the other day. Alley got stung on both knees his first year. Bull Randleman got stung in his armpit. Liebgott got stung on the side of his neck his sophomore year, and had played it off like it was nothing. Lipton, poor guy, got stung in his inner thigh, worryingly close to his nuts. Both Popeye and Buck Compton got stung in their respective asses the first week of this year's band camp. In fact, getting stung in the ass at least one time during the typical four years of band camp was more likely than not.

But, much like an ant bite or a mosquito sting, they were never that serious. They were sore, and annoying, and itched like hell. But the Toccoa Band was a tough bunch and it’d take them more than a bee sting to keep them from playing.

Julian was different. He was obviously allergic and he very obviously was having trouble breathing.

“Heffron,” Eugene said, crouching down at the other side of Julian. “I need you to do one of two things. Either call 911, or find Julian a ride to the hospital if you’re anxious about the bill.”

“Fuck you talking about?” Edward angrily asked, interrupting his assurances to Julian that everything was gonna be alright. 

Eugene didn’t reply, rather he uncapped the pen and stabbed it into Julian’s uncovered thigh. He tore his eyes away from Julian’s face, who appeared to actually be passing out, and grabbed Edward’s shoulder. He probably grabbed it a little harder than necessary, but he could ask for forgiveness later.

“Call 911 or find a ride,” he said to Edward. Edward’s red eyebrows scrunched together in an argument he probably wanted to voice. His face was almost as red as Julian’s, his freckles standing out all the more. Edward’s frown deepened, as if his desire to stay by Julian’s side and his understanding that he needed to go get help had taken the form of boxers and were currently beating the shit out of each other.

After a second’s pause that seemed to last forever, Edward sharply nodded and speed-walked with a purpose towards Toye and Guarnere. With a look directed at the rest of the Pit, Eugene got the help of Spina, Renee, and Augusta in carrying Julian to Toye’s truck.

Once settled into a seat, Julian’s previous struggled wheezing seemed to have eased into something healthier. At the very least, it meant the kid was breathing. Edward sat across from him, while Toye started the engine and Guarnere rode shotgun. Before they drove off, Edward rolled down the window.

“Hey, thanks for tha—”

“ _ Now _ , Babe.” Eugene interrupted, the nickname slipping without his knowledge.

“Yeah,” Babe nodded. “Yeah, sure. Okay, Toye, you know where the hospital is.”

Toye answered in the affirmative and he started the truck. However, before they left the parking lot in the direction of the hospital, Babe poked his head out the window again and gave Eugene a surprised look.

“Hey, Gene, you called me Babe!”

“Heffron, get driving to the goddamn hospital.” 

Despite the current situation, Babe made a snorting laugh and the truck went off. Eugene watched them drive. Afterwards, he turned in the direction of Spina, who was standing behind him. Augusta and Renee had long since returned to the area of the blacktop where the band was gathered. It looked like Martin had held his own against Sobel. From this distance, even Dick seemed to be sharing some unfriendly words with the man. 

Eugene took a deep breath in an attempt to stop panting. That was too much excitement for one goddamn day. He stared at Spina. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

Spina raised up his hands in apology. “I swear to Christ I’ll never say that phrase again. I swear on my mom.”

“M-hm.” Eugene murmured as they began walking back in the direction of the band. “So, how many laps do you think we’ll have tonight?”

“Eh. Legs are overrated,” Spina answered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> leave kudos and/or comments if you've enjoyed reading this!


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm posting two chapters tonight bc i need to do something for Me during this hell finals week!!!

“I can see the heat rising from the ground,” said Moe Alley. He stared at the ground in deep thought while he and the rest of the non-flutes and non-clarinets sat on the blacktop. The flutes and clarinets, mostly the freshmen and sophomores in those sections, were having trouble with moving together as a straight line, along with keeping their instruments from dipping, and Sobel had just about had it. Alley was simply grateful that he had a momentary break from having to snap up his horn, resulting in its tuning slide smacking the fuck out of his left shoulder.

“Alley, welcome to Toccoa,” Liebgott said from nearby. His trombone sat on the ground next to him while Liebgott’s arms were wrapped around his knees. “Where the fuck have you been?”

Alley rolled his eyes and watched the flutes continue their practice. The sunlight glinted off the shiny exterior of their silver-colored instruments. He noticed the trembling arms of some of the flute and clarinet players and snorted. What, were the instruments  _ heavy  _ or something?

“It’s so fucking hot,” Compton muttered, loud enough to be heard by the other members of the trombone section, but soft enough to not be overheard by Sobel. “I wish God loved me enough to let me die.”

A few marchers murmured their agreements in response.

“Well, count your blessings,” Kitty said, glancing briefly at Sobel before holding up her phone and showing the screen to everyone in her section. The weather app displayed icons of dark clouds. “Storm’s about to come in like an hour. Maybe less.”

“Awesome,” Alley said. “We get to go inside!”

Liebgott cast a wary look at Alley and sighed. “Please shut up.”

“I’m not gonna jinx it, Lieb,” Alley said. His fingers played with his lanyard, which held his dot sheets that he hadn’t quite memorized, but he wasn’t stressed over it. Low brass formations were never terribly fancy; all he needed to do was follow what the trombones on either side of him were doing. Marching in straight lines was easier than pie.

“You’re freaky with wishes, man,” Liebgott said, frowning. In the distance, he saw Webster nearly drop his clarinet and slap his arm after, apparently, a bee stung him there. From the clarinet section, a panicked, “They got me!” announced to the band the precarious situation. Liebgott, mostly to himself, muttered, “What an idiot.”

Compton, who was sitting a few feet down, closer to the 35 yard line, nodded in agreement to what Liebgott had said earlier. Wishes were kinda weird with Alley. 

The statement wasn’t without a valid reason. Luz had once joked with the junior trombonist that he was like a genie. Alley had the (as of yet, unverified by any scientific method) power to make something happen, but not the way you would’ve wanted it to happen. Case in point, the time in chemistry last year when he and Chuck Grant had been partners in a lab and Alley was loudly complaining about the chill in the room. Not even a minute later, the lab group nearest to them wrecked their lab project so spectacularly that the whole thing went up in a ball of flames, along with a decent portion of their notebooks left on the table.

There was more than just the lab incident. Alley once joked in about wanting to have a longer winter break. That wish was granted when the regular winter break was extended for another week due to heavy snow and icy roads. Alley once mentioned how he didn't want to take a math midterm on a Friday and both the math teacher, the assigned sub teacher, and the sub on standby got food poisoning.

Perhaps Luz calling Alley was a misnomer. It wasn’t so much he granted the wishes of other people. The common denominator for these incidents was that Alley was the one doing the wishing.

“Who said anything about going inside?” Randleman said. The sousaphone player was seated fairly close to where the trombones were gathered together. The tall marcher appeared to tower over them despite sitting down like the rest of them. “We’re brass. We play in the rain.”

“Like I said,” Liebgott continued. “Where the fuck have you been?”

“I love playing in the rain,” Kitty said. She was tying her strawberry-blonde hair back into a bun. “It makes me feel one with nature.Like when I listen to Stevie Nicks.”

“Uh huh. Well,” Alley said, not sure how to respond to what Kitty said. “Like, it’ll be cloudy at least. Blocking the sun and shit. That’s literally all I ask for.” Moe felt like his shirt, and shorts even, were plastered to his skin like glue on paper mache. The humidity was almost too much to bear. The air was stickier than usual. But, if Kitty’s prediction rang true, it was probably on account of the storm that was supposed to come through. 

Liebgott opened his mouth, hesitating for a second before finding his words. “Think dark cloud thoughts.”

“Alright,” Alley said.

“Nothing weird. Just shade. And wind.”

“Sure.”

“Don’t blow this for us.”

“Yeah, totally,” Alley said. “Dark clouds. Shade. Wind.”

“Yeah, Alley!” Compton called out. It was a testament to how focused on the flutes Sobel was that the band instructor didn’t react to it. “Work your magic!”

Alley rolled his shoulders and made a show of stretching his fingers and neck. Finally, he tightly closed his eyes and thought cloudy thoughts.  _ Wind. So much wind. Cold wind. And shade, lots of shade from clouds. _

He considered something.  _ Maybe some rain. For Kitty. _

A few minutes of intense thinking later, Sobel instructed the rest of the band to get to their feet and get from sets 5 to 30. 

Alley brought his trombone up and followed the other trombones to their original position. 

_ Cold wind. Shade. A little bit of rain. Cold wind. Shade. A little bit of rain. _


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> rainy practice part 2

Lipton didn’t worry too much about the first drop of rain that landed right in his right eye. He simply waved his hand to catch Dick’s attention regarding the incoming weather. Dick smiled and nodded, giving an announcement that woodwinds needed to put their instruments away inside the band room. 

“But return to the field as soon as your done,” Dick continued after Lipton stored his piccolo away. “It’s just a little rain.”

However, the light drizzle started to come down harder a few minutes later once the woodwinds had all their instruments packed away. 

Lipton bit back a curse at having forgotten his cap at home. He knew exactly where in his room the damn thing was. He’d tossed it onto his stack of Nat Geos next to his bed, making a mental note to grab the thing when he left for camp the next morning. Newsflash: the mental note slipped his damn mind.

Lipton made a mental note to put down notes for his future self down on paper.

“Guys, I know we don’t have our instruments, but when they call for attention,” he began, facing the flute players in his section. “Hands up.” The senior demonstrated this by clasping his arms into a fist and holding it up in front of his body where his flute would usually be. He watched the other flute players mirror his action before waving his hand down. “Just remember that.”

The four drum majors clapped four times before shouting, “Band ten hut!”

“Hut!” the band responded in kind.

Lipton glanced around his section and saw the flute players with their hands up. He grinned and released his hands from fists quick enough to give them a thumbs up before bringing his attention back to the front.

“I know most of y’all don’t have your instruments,” Dick began, looking around at the band. “But we’re still gonna do our best here. We’re gonna start tackling act 3.”

Groans echoed across the field.

“Guys, we’re at attention,” Talbert called from the middle of the field. The flute player had previously auditioned, and gotten the part, of the flute solo during the second act of the show. Thus, he was further away from the rest of his band.

“Thanks, Tab,” Dick said over the sudden roar of the wind. Lipton was almost positive that the only reason he managed to hear the ginger was due to the fact that the flute section was so close to the front of the field. Dick frowned at the sky and bent down to pick up the megaphone near him. He turned it on. “Alright, so we all know how to find our dots, right? Make note of how many steps it takes to get to your dot and we’ll go from there.”

Lipton glanced down at the his newest dot sheet. They’d passed them out earlier that day, so he had no idea why no one thought they wouldn’t be starting to figure it out the same day. According to his sheet, he needed to take 12 steps to get to his place 1.75 steps inside the 25 yard line, which also happened to be 2 steps in front of the front hash. Once he figured this out, he began the task of helping the freshmen and some of the sophomores find their spots as well.

“If it’s just right there,” a tall freshman named John Janovec was saying, pointing at a relatively short distance from his current dot. “Why’s it say I need 16 steps to get there?”

“Just take really, really small steps,” Lipton said. He demonstrated, marching on his heels, rolling only slightly. “I’m talking really damn tiny.”

“Duck steps!” Talbert shouted at the freshman from a few feet away.

“Duck steps!” Smokey parroted from where the clarinets were getting sorted.

Finding the first dot of act 3 took all of one minute, which was a new record this season. From that dot, Lipton helped his section (and any section that managed to cross his path) find their dots. Grumbles were at a minimum, the rain and wind seemed to die down, and everything was going so smoothly. 

Suspiciously smoothly. 

Lipton had the strange feeling that the other foot was going to drop.

“Let’s get back to the end of act 2,” Dick said into the megaphone. “And get all the way back to where we are now. How’s that sound?”

A cheer rang across the band, as the drop in temperature seemed to give them all a boost of much-needed energy. The colorguard held their white rifles at their first position from where they were gathered in an arc around the back section of the band. Everyone ran back to their old dots and stood at position waiting for their next instructions, when suddenly the drizzle became a downpour. It changed in a split second with nothing, not even a thunderclap, to signify it was going to happen.

Curiously, Lipton noticed how Speirs smiled into the sky in amusement. Lipton couldn’t say if he’d ever seen the drum major smile before. 

_ He should do it more often _ , Lipton thought, smiling himself as he blinked away the raindrops that fell into his eyes.

“Well,” Popeye Wynn said from behind Lipton. Lipton wiped, or attempted to wipe, some water from his face (but the difficulty of that was immense as one couldn’t easily wipe away water with more water) and turned to see the sophomore slick back his now dark hair and uselessly wring his hands. “I’m wet.”

“Does that mean we’re going inside?” Janovec asked.

“What? This is nothing,” Lipton said, truthfully. “You should’ve seen us during the last day of camp before family day for our pirate show. We didn’t go inside for an hour.”

“Oh my God, I’m gonna drown,” the freshman said.

“Band, we’re still at attention!” Nixon called out, looking as ridiculous as ever with rain water dripping down all over his drinking hat. “Horns are still up!” Nixon made a face. “Well, you know what I mean.”

The drum majors waited for the band to quiet down before Dick announced that they were still going to do resume their practice.

“No one goes inside until we see lightning,” he said in a tone that left no room for argument. They were the Toccoa High School Marching Band. All day, all night, rain, shine, tidal wave, whatever, they pushed on.

The band got to work, watching the drum majors conduct while they slowly marched their way (with a slower tempo) towards their dot. It almost seemed like they were going to make it all the way towards the end of act 3 when—

_ “What the FUCK!” _ a voice screamed from the back of the band.

And with that cry came a heavier downpour. However, rather than the rain that they were powering through, what fell down was harder and colder.

“Alley, you monster!” Lipton heard Liebgott cry out. Lipton turned to see how exactly Liebgott was going to exact his rage on the junior. However, before he could find them, something hard and sharp hit his face and he let out a cry of his own.

“Everyone, head towards the band room!” Speirs said calmly into the megaphone. “That means you, Blithe.” 

Lipton briefly wondered how he managed to stay so calm through all this, but Speirs was already so goddamn weird.

Lipton raised his hands over his head as he witnessed hail crash into the ground all around him. The trees that lined the back of the field whipped back and forth in the strong winds. Marchers were shouting and scrambling and running in every direction, looking for cover. From the front of the band, the drum majors themselves were finding cover and the Pit looked more distressed than Lipton had ever seen them, arguing about where they were going to put the instruments.

Lipton tapped the area of his face above his cheek and held those fingers in front of his eyes, briefly noticing the red color on them before it washed away in the rain.

“Fuck,” he whispered to himself before doing a 180 around him, making sure there weren’t any freshmen trapped under the hail of a, well, hailstorm.

Lipton cupped his hands around his mouth and called out, “No marcher left behind!” As if to emphasize his order, deafening thunder boomed above, followed a few seconds afterwards by criss-crossing lightning that lit up the previously soot colored sky into a pale blue.

Brass players dashed towards the direction of the band room, guarding their instrument with as much as their body as they could spare. Trumpets and mellophones were stuffed underneath shirts and trombones were pressed against rib cages. The sousaphone section appeared to channel the spirits of cheetahs, if the sight of them outpacing the majority of the brass (with that massive instrument wrapped around them, no less) was anything to go by. Hoobler was screaming something about “I’m a lightning conduit!”

Soon, it appeared Lipton was the only person in his section still out in the rain. He walked around, ignoring the wet feeling of his socks and shirt and jeans. The area of his cheek that had gotten hit still dully throbbed in pain, stinging whenever rain landed on the cut. In fact, the downpour of hail appeared to have shifted back to just rain. The rain continued to pour continuously until there was a constant hum of raindrops hitting the blacktop and the trees and the parked (and now slightly dented) cars. If Lipton had the time, and was free of the responsibility of being a section leader, he wouldn’t mind just standing out here for a while. 

“The hell you still doing out here?” a voice came from the side of Lipton. Lipton turned, shielding his eyes with a hand although he continued to blink furiously against the rain. As far as he was concerned, he had an easier time making out shapes and such when his head was dunked underneath the surface of his neighborhood’s pool. It took him a moment, but he finally made out the owner of the voice standing next to him. Ronald Speirs.

“What the hell are  _ you  _ doing out here?” Litpon asked, pointedly. If Speirs was going to say anything about a section leader being away from his section, Lipton had all rights to say something about a drum major being away from his band.

Speirs shrugged, his previously curly brown hair falling over his forehead in waves underneath the weight of the rainwater. “Nothing wrong with a little rain.”

Lipton raised his eyes, incredulous. “A little rain, huh?”

“You ever been in a hurricane?”

“No.”

“This qualifies as a little rain.”

Lipton considered this as he watched the clouds above moving across the sky enough for the sun to peek through. The former hailstorm was officially a sunshower.

“Have you?” Lipton began.

“Have I what?” Speirs asked.

“Been in a hurricane,” Lipton said. “Because between how you were allegedly raised by wolves, that you’re a secret heir to a millionaire, and that you actually have eleven toes, I can’t seem to keep up.”

The former Oconee High Dog looked at him with an amused look on his face and made a little snorting sound through his nose. “That one’s true.”

“Which one?”

Speirs smirked. “Guess.”

“And the eight-pack abs?” Lipton wondered aloud, deciding it was probably better to not guess.

Speirs made a humming sound and shrugged, failing to conjure the appropriate amount of innocence in his expression. “No idea where that came from,” he said, with a tone that said he knew _ exactly _ where that rumor came from.

Lipton smiled despite himself, looking away from the drum major to look back at the sky, squinting since the sun was coming more into view.

“We should probably get inside,” Lipton said.

“Probably,” Speirs returned.

Lipton and Speirs continued to stand in the rain for a few minutes more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (did anyone notice that sandlot reference?)
> 
> also, idk how to write crushes and junk but i hafta start somewhere
> 
> leave kudos and comments if you've enjoyed this double feature!!!


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so ha ha i've finished summer school and i've enjoyed being home and chilling so much that i forgot to update lmao

David Webster was 70% sure he had a crush on Joe Liebgott, which was a  _ problem _ since Liebgott was the worst possible person to have a crush on.

It wasn’t so much that Liebgott wasn’t attractive, or funny, or smart, or seemingly blessed with the most perfect hair in Toccoa. He was all of those things and more. It was just that Liebgott himself was  _ insufferable _ and  _ rude _ and  _ always seemed pissed off for reasons unknown _ . He’d tried his luck with being friends, but their personalities seemed to react like alkali metal in water: something was gonna catch on fire.

“You know what classes you’re taking this semester?” Smokey asked. He, Webster, and a smattering of other seniors, were casually lined up in the hallway outside the band room. The line led towards the entrance of the orchestra room, which was currently retrofitted into a uniform fitting room. It was due to be a long day, what with trying on uniforms, bibbers, gloves (Webster technically could’ve used his from last year, but he’d lost them during the months that followed since the last marching band season. They probably found its way inside the donation bin his mom was always refilling and dumping at Goodwill twice a year), getting helmets (seniors had priority for the new non-dented helmets that arrived this year), and shoes (if you needed them. Some miracle had guarded Webster’s shoes from last year, and he didn’t get holes in the soles this time around. Less pivoting than usual, he guessed).

“Tons of APs,” Webster said. He wasn’t sure if he were too concerned about it, but he was aware it wasn’t going to be easy. He was mostly worried about AP Physics, since he wasn’t much of a math-minded person. He was looking forward to AP Literature. He’d only heard good things about Mrs. Levi, the teacher for that class. He’d heard that reading _The Importance of Being Earnest_ was turned into a whole event. There was even the collaboration with the school’s theater department with the Oedipus play. He hadn’t seen the annual performance the previous years it had been put on. Apparently the final act of the play had fake blood galore.

Smokey gave Webster a sympathetic look. “Yikes. Power to you, man.”

Webster shrugged. “I’ve made it this far. Hey, you know I’m really looking forward to the new marine biology class with Thornton. I bet we’ll get field trips to the Georgia Aquarium and everything.”

“Don’t you start with the sharks again, Web,” Katherine said from the other side of him.

“What do you got against sharks, Katherine?” Webster asked.

Katherine rubbed her face and gestured at Webster's shirt which was, incidentally, rocking a blue and white shark pattern. Smokey cackled.

“Whatever, Katherine. Hey Smokey, wanna hear a shark joke?” Webster took a step forward, since the line jumped forward when a senior entered the orchestra room. “What did the shark plead in court?”

“What?” Smokey asked, still laughing, as Katherine audibly groaned.

Webster opened his mouth to answer when Liebgott exited the doors of the band room, twisting open the top of his water bottle with the clear intention of filling it in the water fountain. He was wearing cropped black t-shirt that had the face of a detective on it, someone called “Dick Tracy” in a bold yellow font. It also looked like Liebgott was trying not to roll his eyes if the pinch of his eyebrows was any indicator. With his annoyingly perfect hair.

“Gill-ty,” Liebgott answered, the bottle top popping open.

Smokey laughed harder and Webster’s eyebrows jumped to the top of his head, ears burning with from an emotion he couldn’t place. “Yeah. Yeah. Lucky guess!”

“No,” Liebgott shook his head. “You said the same joke last year in AP Lang, Web.” With that, he walked down to the water fountain.

“Oh,” Webster said to himself. He barely paid attention to what Smokey was currently talking about, something about how tough Mr. Guiterrez’s Calc class was supposed to be. Try as he might (though, who was to say he was actually trying), he couldn’t hear Smokey and Katherine’s conversation over the sound of blood rushing through his ears, over the sound of Liebgott’s voice saying “last year in AP Lang”.

Liebgott remembered a joke he’d told.

_ Liebgott remembered a joke he’d told. _

By the time Webster walked into the orchestra room where band moms were sorting through the green and orange uniforms hanging on a rack, he was 90% sure he had a crush on Liebgott. How it jumped up 20% extra percentage points was less a mystery and more having to do with the way Liebgott had not-so-subtly smirked when he said “Gill-ty”.

Fuck, how embarrassing was that?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope y'alls summer has been great! also, comment or leave kudos if you've enjoyed so far!


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have school on wednesday, kill me now

“ _Friday Night Lights_ , _The Replacements_ , or _Necessary Roughness_?”

Roy Cobb gave Perconte an unimpressed look, frowning as he organized the music in his band folder. “Is this for movie night?”

“Yeah,” Perconte answered.

“The movie night that’s tonight? That movie night?”

“Yeah,” Perconte answered.

“And Dike probably asked you to organize this, what, weeks ago?”

“ _ Yeah _ .”

“Don’t you think it reflects poorly on you as a senior to put this off until the la—”

“You gonna choose a movie or not, Cobb?”

“ _Waterboy_ ,” Cobb said, smirking.

“Get fucked, Cobb,” Perconte said, brushing past him to where a freshman named Earl McClung (lovingly nicknamed “One Lung” on account of him joining the band as an asthmatic) was unscrewing the valves of his mellophone in order to oil them down.

“Hey, McClung? _Friday Night Lights_ , _The Replacements_ , or _Necessary Roughness_?”

It wasn’t so much that Perconte had put off gathering the list until the last minute. Or, perhaps that was very much the gist of the situation, but it was more complicated than that. The job was originally designated to Burton Christenson at the beginning of camp, a fellow trumpet player, and had agreed to get the band to choose between three football-themed movies. However, that plan had fallen to the wayside when Christenson announced that he needed to get his wisdom teeth removed halfway through the first week of band camp. By then, he hadn’t even chosen the three football movies. Which, fair enough, he was going through a lot at the time, what with his whole jaw being sore and puffy looking and being unable to play the trumpet (just finger along and hold it an its upright playing position doing fuck all in the meantime). As Christenson would get picked up early during camp days to recover at home, he shopped around the rest of his section for anyone else willing to take up the movie job.

No one volunteered.

Then, Christenson said he’d pay the person ten bucks.

So Perconte (and Luz) jumped at the chance because ten bucks can buy a lot of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. Perconte and Luz flipped a coin on it and Perconte won. The job was his.

Here was the issue though: marching band was exhausting. A typical day consisted of waking up at ass o’clock in the morning, practicing for hours under the hot Georgia sun, having a quick chug-and-go for water breaks and a thirty minute breather for lunch. Whatever water you had time to swallow is pouring out of your body from every existing sweat gland in your body, so much so that by the day’s end you’ve managed to lose half your body weight in sweat alone (not to mention the fat that leaves you with calves of steel). Plus, all that sweat makes you smell like shit because deodorant does  _ nothing  _ in humid 90 degrees. The sun might even burn through your shitty dollar store sunscreen and every muscle you have the disadvantage of possessing hurts in such a way that you’ve half a mind to die of starvation by curling up in the fetal position for the remainder of your life if it meant that you wouldn’t have to ever move again. Rinse, repeat.

So, Perconte might have shelved the movie job into a lower priority than he had initially anticipated.

Two days before the movie night (one of the few recompenses given to the marchers after working so damn hard), Perconte woke up in a cold sweat (three hours before ass o’clock in the morning) suddenly,  _ suddenly,  _ remembering the movies.

The past two days was spent watching as many football movies as he could find and settling on the three he liked the most. He had downloaded all three movies (from, admittedly, sketch websites but desperate times call for desperate measures) on stand-by in his laptop, and all he needed to do was settle on one.

“Um,” McClung inspected his valve before twisting it back in. “I don’t watch sport movies.”

Perconte gave a tight smile. “Just choose whatever sounds like something you’d watch.”

“Probably, uh, _Necessary Roughness_? Title sounds weird.”

Perconte looked down at his notebook, opened to the page titled MOVIE NIGHT (underlined an undefined number of times due to the anxiety that racked his body while he was writing it down. He thinks the lines tore through the page). Very few tally marks covered the page underneath the 3 columns representing the movies, but any number of tally marks was better than zero. He added a tally underneath the column for Necessary Roughness.

“Thanks man, you’ve been a real help,” Perconte said before walking to the next nearest marcher. “Hey, Dukeman, _Friday Night Lights_ , _The Replacements_ , or _Necessary Roughness_?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> leave a comment or some kudos if you've enjoyed reading this!


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i had classes today (*insert that Us scene with elisabeth moss silently wailing before laughing hysterically*). i just want another week of summer!
> 
> also, elizabeth in this chapter is based on elizabeth ludeau, smokey's irl wife. i just need more girls in this story bc there's No One.
> 
> also also, the german egg girl is called Erica here and she's the leader of the color guard. i need to use practically every female minor character i possibly can lol
> 
> also also also, i figured it should be a common headcanon (if it isn't already) that smokey is, by nature, a storyteller, especially if "night of the bayonet" is used as evidence!

Movie night was a hit. Not too much because of the movie ( _Necessary Roughness_ won out), but because of the spontaneous dance party that began in the art room.

“I’ll start at the beginning,” Smokey said, recounting the events of the night to his girlfriend on the other end of the phone. The senior girl, Elizabeth, was at a summer getaway with friends from her orchestra class. Smokey could hear the cello player's friends giggle in the background.

It had been only a few days before Family Day. Everyone was antsy about finishing the show. All the fine tuning would be done later, which was no problem. It was simply exciting to be marching like one entity, finally, accomplishing the task they had devoted most of their summer to. Competition Season, of course, would be hell on earth (not to mention juggling actual school work on top of preparing for competing with other bands). But that was tomorrow’s problem. That day, the color guard and woodwinds (instruments strategically set to the side) swung and danced their flags across the field in the third act. The fanciful picture of flags fluttering and dancing of the bright-colored flags over the blacktop, led by the undisputed leader of the color guard: Erica (who had the misfortune of being nicknamed "Eggy" her freshman year due to a senior prank involving chickens gone wrong. That day, the drumline played sharp rhythms that carried the band forward. That day, he watched the horns moved as a unit, marching in a straight line to the front of the field, blasting the last note of the show in such a deafening harmony it made goosebumps travel up his arms.

Although they still had two more days of band camp (and school would start the week after next), Smokey would never grow tired of the proud feeling that filled him that came from finishing band camp.

Sobel had called the band up to the front, and they all sat expectantly on the ground under the sunset painting the sky a warm orange hue. The air was cooler, his arms ached as they always did, and Sobel was wearing one of his weird smiles. Smiles always looked weird on the band, as if his face was built around the objective of constant frowning and any deviation from that would push him into Uncanny Valley, but smiling always meant the man was in a good mood. He wasn’t gonna jinx that.

Their band instructor congratulated them all on a job well done, thanking the drum majors for their leadership in guiding the band, and eventually let them go off to sectionals. The sectionals lasted about a second in length because everyone’s minds were set on the popcorn and drinks and pizza and movie playing inside.

“Turns out there was more than just that. Sobel had to leave early to visit some lady friend of his, so someone set up a fucking casino thing in the chorus room. If Sobel was there, he woulda crawled our asses,” Smokey said, laughing loudly for a few seconds before continuing. “Now, whether it was Shifty or Compton who set it up, I ain’t gotta clue. All I know is that Babe walked into that room with 20 dollars and left five minutes later owing Compton 30 bucks and a pack of gum.”

The setup of the arts building was completely turned upside down to accommodate the size of the band and the activities they were planning on participating in. The band room, in all its musty glory, had the lights dimmed and the seats arranged around the big screen at the front of the room. The previews were playing loud enough to hear in the hallway and Perconte was loudly trying to fix the volume problem, cursing loudly whenever something went wrong. In the hall itself was a popcorn machine and a snowcone maker with dozens of kids lined up to get both. Some artsy kid, a freshman or a sophomore or whoever, had set up a line herself for anyone who wanted their face painted.

“Folks like to complain about some chick being heavy on the makeup, but give some dude face paint and he goes buck wild,” Smokey said.

The face paint, as it turned out, glowed in the dark. Smokey was certain either Popeye or Skip made some Dateline joke about that both Webster and Liebgott had called out for its immaturity (which had them looking awkwardly at each other, which Smokey thought was hilarious).

The movie wasn’t anything special in Smokey’s opinion. He was more of a baseball movie fan himself. Give him _Field of Dreams_ or _A League of their Own_ or even _The Sandlot_ any day of the week. Football movies weren’t it for him.

The highlight of the movie wasn’t the movie itself. He stayed long enough with a bag of popcorn to see Luz walk up to the stage, saying something about this was his “favorite part of the movie”.

“Then,” Smokey said, “He was all like, “Give me a hat! I need a hat!” and then someone gave him a hat and then he also put on a jacket and zipped it up. And then he performed the scene.”

Once the scene came on, Luz had promptly threw down the hat he was given onto the ground, mouthing the words that the coach was saying on the screen. “Not a goddamn thing's been working for us!” the coach said. As the onscreen coach continued on his tirade, Luz stripped himself down from his jacket (here, Smokey pointed out that Luz was wearing another jacket underneath for the full effect), stripped off the second jacket, threw down an imaginary tie, and got as red in the face as the fictional coach. 

“You go out there! You tear their fucking heads off! And you shit down their _necks!_ ” it had finished. Luz brought his palms together and bowed his head. “Let us pray,” he had mouthed alongside the coach.

The movie had held little interest for Smokey after Luz’s performance art. Like he’d said, football wasn’t his cup of tea. 

“Then I got my face painted like Robin,” Smokey said. “Whites around my eye and outlined with black. All I needed was my clarinet to double as a baton.” He wiggled his eyebrows slyly even though Elizabeth wouldn’t have seen over the phone. “I just needed a Batgirl.”

He heard a snorting laugh over the phone, followed by his girlfriend calling him an idiot.

Smokey had entered the art room. He’d heard dance music being played in their, but the room was pretty empty, save the mellophone. And Kitty.

They had been busy moving chairs out of the way, even Cobb (although he complained the entire time about the noise the chairs made being dragged across the floor). Paintings and charcoal drawings hung from the walls, along with works of pretty crappy pastel pottery that lined the shelves. He supposed that some art students decided to leave their creations in the room after graduating (he had plenty of teachers who would ask to keep works of art done by students that would later be displayed on the classroom walls. His AP United States History teacher even had art on one of her walls done by students dating back a couple of decades, which made sense since the teacher was, like, a million years old). Popeye said the pottery looked good, but Popeye was colorblind. Then again, what did Smokey know about art? He could only draw stick figures standing in place. No teachers ever asked him if they could keep his artwork.

The song playing from someone’s speaker wasn’t one he recognized, but that didn’t stop Smokey from bobbing his head up and down and making his way towards the center of the room bopping to the beat.

“Now did I start the dance party?” Smokey asked with a laugh. “Did Americans land on the moon? The truth is out there.”

Whether or not he started the dance party, it didn’t take long for the mellophones to begin shaking their thang in their own unique way. Cobb watched from sidelines because the dude was allergic to fun.

Soon after, the sound’s of Depeche Mode’s “Just Can’t Get Enough” blasted from the portable radio, so loud that the radio seemed to bounce a little from the vibrations booming from the speakers. Smokey was no dancer, but he channeled the energy of every music video background dancer in his memory and let it all out on the makeshift dance floor.

Soon after, the art room began to get crowded. All but a few lights were turned off. The paint on the marchers’ faces glowed in neon designs (because whoever that freshman or sophomore artsy girl was, she was a genius). A soul train of sorts had formed and people danced down the line.

“There was even a disco ball. I did’t even know we had a disco ball!”

A variety of songs had played, from weird polka to dubstep. A Led Zeppelin song had even been thrown in the mix and everyone did air guitar. Eventually, the songs had somehow landed on disco. 

“I later found out this was Grant’s playlist. This dude listens to literally _everything_.”

Smokey learned many things that evening. Firstly, Christenson could do the worm. Secondly, that Renée could do a split. Thirdly, that Malarkey, Skip, and Penkala were probably the best dancers of the robot that he’d ever seen (Compton might’ve been just as good, but he burst in the room at the end of the song with arms full of popcorn shouting over the music that he hated this song). Fourthly, Nixon could do a backflip, although he had to quickly run outside to throw up after he did it. Fifthly, both Talbert and Welsh could breakdance like a motherfucker.

“That wasn’t that big of a surprise because I went to the same science camp as those two. I saw them breakdance years ago. I think Talbert taught Welsh how. They both just got weirdly better at it.”

Sixthly, and most surprisingly, both Webster and Liebgott could hold their own in a dance-off.

“I don’t know how to describe dances, but Webster was like  _ this _ ,” Smokey said, flapping his arms and contorting his back in one fashion. “And Lieb was like  _ that _ .” He did different flapping and contorting. “It was crazy. It was  _ unbelievable.  _ I can’t believe I didn’t get it on video!”

Elizabeth pointed out that she couldn’t see a single thing Smokey just did, so he promised to show her once he saw her that weekend.

If anyone was more surprised at the night’s events than Smokey, it was Liebgott. He had given Webster an odd look at the end of an Earth, Wind and Fire banger, sweating and panting their asses off. Smokey didn’t know what came of it because the radio had switched to a song he  _ hated _ and he  _ had _ to leave, for the sake of his health. Nothing was worse than an earworm wiggling around in his head when he planned to hit the hay.

“So that was cool. And, oh yeah, a couple of freshmen got into a fight in the girl’s bathroom and dislodged one of the stall doors, so a group of us spent the rest of the night trying to fix it before Sobel found out later on.”

“See, this is why I never joined band,” said his girlfriend. “We’re nowhere near as weird as you guys.”

“How was that weird?” Smokey argued into the phone.

“You broke a bathroom door!”

“I didn’t break it. And did you miss me talking about the dance party? Because we had a dance party.”

“Before that, Luz started stripping during the movie.”

“It wasn’t stripping. It was a performance art. It was funny.” Smokey paused. “Hey, y’all are plenty weird.”

“How is orchestra weird?”

“Not orchestra, Liz. Drama club.”

“That’s a different type of weird.”

“It’s a different type of weird, my _ass_ ,” Smokey said. “Y’all had a Rocky Horror flashmob in the cafeteria during Spirit Week last year. _That’s_ weird.”

“I’m hanging up,” Elizabeth said.

“No wait, I haven’t even gotten to the part of the night where Hashey blew up the cotton candy machine.”

Elizabeth hung up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> good luck to any of y'all starting the fall semester! and leave kudos or a comment if you've been enjoying so far! (and, to any marching band people out there, i'm doubling that good luck!)


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *drops some winnix*

Nixon didn’t need a sixth sense to pick up on the near-electric excitement and growing anticipation that had radiated from the marchers only minutes before the band was due to set off for their summer trip to see the Drums Corps International at the Georgia Dome. 

In opinion, DCI was the highlight of the band camp season. It was more memorable than something as simple as a movie night or playing in the rain or snow cone night or (obviously) the dreaded picture day that had yet to occur.

Hell, even the bus ride to Atlanta was worth looking forward to since Sobel, for all his hard-assness didn’t shirk when it came to top quality shit. Nixon would never admit it out loud, but that was one thing the current band director had over the previous one. But he wouldn’t get caught dead giving the man a compliment. 

DCI was an opportunity to blow away high school marching bands with the sheer power and energy emanating out of the rows of shiny horns. It was a time to become awed at the patterns the professional marchers were able to form, whether they were spirals or rotating boxes or entire moving images that could give an impression of a bird in flight. (It was also a time for the woodwinds to make a loud case for allowing their instruments in the profession while getting summarily shut down by the brass).

There were the Bluecoats, Cavaliers, the Blue Devils, Phantom Regiment (Nixon’s personal favorite ever since he saw their Three Musketeers show his freshman year), the Spirit of Atlanta (Sobel had performed with them in his youth), the Mandarins, Carolina Crown, among others. It was a chance to kick back, relax, and have your eardrums ruptured like you were in the front row of a dubstep concert (a genre that Nixon would never admit he liked out loud).

Currently Nixon was sitting on the bus, legs outstretched over the two connecting seats in his row. They were fancy seats, covered in a fuzzy grey and maroon checkered pattern. Every so often, he’d raise his eyes from the book he was reading ( _ Frankenstein _ was required summer reading before AP Literature began in the fall and Nixon was many things, a dog owner, a classical music connoisseur, a borderline alcoholic, but he wasn’t a slacker). He’d mutter “Taken” to any person who wasn’t a pale and lanky redhead who passed down the aisle down the length of the bus looking for a place to sit down.

“Damn, Nixon, you can’t just save seats,” Hoobler said as he reached where Nixon was sitting. He was wearing a Bluecoats sweatshirt, all prepped and prepared to support his favorite band. In his hands was tupperware container of something homecooked, a common sight among a good third of the band since not everyone was willing to pay outrageous prices for food at the Dome. 

“I’m a drum major, Hoob,” Nixon replied. 

“So?” Hoobler questioned, dragging out the vowel like he didn’t have anything else to do.

“So, tough shit,” Nixon returned without malice. He smiled at the young sousaphone player. “Find a seat. Have a nice day.”

“Better luck next time, Hoobler” a voice said and, thank fuck that Nixon didn’t have dog ears or else they would’ve perked up and he’d never be able to live it down. He bookmarked  _ Frankenstein  _ and glanced up to where a familiar redhead was standing behind Hoobler with a drawstring bag hanging over one heavily freckled shoulder. “And I think Garcia and Hashey were looking for you. They’re on bus two.”

“Shit,” Hoobler said, immediately squeezing past Dick. “I thought  _ this  _ was bus two.” And with that, he was off. 

The bus was beginning to get louder and would undoubtedly get louder still. There were overhead television sets ( _ fancy as hell _ ) which would soon be playing something Disney. Nixon knew someone told him the title. He thinks Perconte might’ve asked him to vote on one. Nixon was unfamiliar with each title except  _ The Lion King _ . That,  _ Aladdin _ , and  _ Mulan  _ were the only Disney movies he’d ever seen and the two others weren’t on the list. He didn’t think The Lion King won. He probably would’ve remembered that.

Beyond the tv sets, the noise of the bus would become filled with jokes, chatter, and campfire sons in the vein of “The Mysterious Ticking Noise” and “John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt” until somebody screamed at them to shut up.

It was always the loudest going. The ride back always ended up with half the band asleep and drooling.

“Goin’ my way?” Nixon drawled, in a Georgian accent more reminiscent of his grandma than the accent he regularly spoke in. Supposedly, the accent reared its head when he was really,  _ really _ drunk. Which, fortunately enough, was less and less often. But Dick had once said that the accent made him sound like a Classic Hollywood star. His words, not Nix’s. And it wasn’t accurate. Nixon had heard his grandmother speak and she wouldn’t have been allowed within fifty feet of a silver screen. That, and Classic Hollywood actors sounded almost British. And he’d know that since he was the one in this relationship that watched old movies. Hell, Nixon was pretty sure that Dick had never watched a movie made pre-1980. What did he know about how Classic Hollywood actors and how they spoke?

Not that any of that mattered in the slightest. Nixon was just a pedantic asshole sometimes. And he thought it was a sweet thing to say. So, of course he randomly switched to that accent at any opportune moment since he knew Dick thought it was hot.

Dick smiled, his cheeks blotchy with a darkening shade of red. “Sure,” he said.

Nixon swung his legs out of the way so Dick’s giant self could sit down. 

“Don’t know why I have to do this,” Nixon began once Dick had gotten comfortable next to him. His boyfriend was wearing a purple Back to the Future hoodie. At least that’s what Nixon thought it was. It had that same 80s brunette on it, but he was wearing a cowboy hat this time. Maybe it was a different movie.

“Do what?”

“Save seats,” Nixon said. “I’ve got more than seniority rights. I’m a drum major, for Chrissake.”

“Yeah?”

“I think this status implies that any seat I’m sitting next to is reserved. I shouldn’t have to argue it.”

“Then don’t,” Dick simply said.

“Don’t what?” Nixon asked, idly flipping the pages of his book. “Argue it or reserve it.”

“Argue it. You’re a drum major for pete’s sake.”

Nixon snorted and playfully shoved Dick’s shoulder.

“Just one word: “Move it along”.”

“That’s three words.”

“And who got a 5 on the AP Lang exam?” Dick playfully demanded. At Nixon’s shaking head, he smirked. “Exactly.” 

Nixon began to put his book away into the bag he had at his feet.

“Is that any good?” he heard Dick ask. 

Nixon looked at the book and shrugged. “Dr. Frankenstein is kind of a dick.” At the unamused face Dick made, he began again. “He’s kind of an ass, I mean. A real headcase”

“That so?”

“Yeah, so like. He builds this lifeform, right. He drops out of college and decides to go grave robbing for parts in order to create this life-form. However, once the life-form, Frankenstein’s monster, wakes up, the guy decides to abandon him. Just ups and leaves. Like an ass. Or a deadbeat dad. Deadbeat god? If anyone’s the monster here, it’s the doctor.”

“Would he even be a doctor?” Dick inquired. “You said he dropped out of college.”

“You’re right. It should be called “College Dropout Discovers the Meaning of Life and Shits on It: A Tragedy in Three Parts.”

Dick laughed.

“You know, in the book, he falls in love with his cousin. But, in other books it’s his adoptive sister.”

“So  _ that’s _ why it’s a horror book,” Dick said in wonder, with the kind of tone that Nixon wasn’t totally sure if the drum major was joking or being serious. Suddenly, his face changed. “You know what’d be fun? A Halloween show?”

It was Nixon’s turn to make a face. “Sounds tacky. Remember that one competition at the Dome where that school performed a Christmas show? That must’ve felt like cruel irony during their band camp.”

“Everything sounds tacky at face value,” Dick stated. “What’s our show about again?”

Nixon cleared his throat. “What were you saying about that potential Halloween show again?”

“Now, imagine it starts off with the front ensemble playing the theme from  _ The Exorcist _ .”

“You’ve seen  _ The Exorcist? _ ” Nixon asked in undisguised disbelief.

Dick ignored Nixon and continued. “The trumpets might feature the theme from the Munsters.”

Nixon grinned. “Thriller’s gotta fit in somewhere. But let’s talk set design.”

And as the bus filled with the remaining students before driving off onto the road, the two drum majors continued to speculate at their seats about a potential Halloween show. They couldn’t agree on a name, nor whether or not to include Ghostbusters (Nixon argued the tackiness was going too far). Nixon didn’t notice when the Disney movie began and had no interest in paying attention to it since it wasn’t  _ The Lion King _ . For now until Atlanta, Dick Winters had his attention. He didn’t have much to add to the conversation and was mostly content with listening to Dick’s imagination run wild.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you've enjoyed reading so far, drop a comment or sprinkle on a few kudos!


End file.
